Life Through Lenses (Second Try)

(I re-wrote this because I didn't like it the first time)

Life Through Lenses

Kissing is a funny thing. It’s even funnier when you factor in that my kissing-partner and I are sitting in the freezing cold of a mid-summer storm over-cast, with my sister watching on bemusedly with a camcorder. Oh yeah, and the fact that we’re both guys. That’s a little funny too…but not the ha-ha way, but in the “uh…yeah” kind of funny way.
I suppose I should explain. Because right now you’re thinking, “Oh god, this kid is a homo, argh.” But I’m seriously not. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m at the adolescent stage where I am kind of willing to try and experience new things. But Ben isn’t. He’s waaaaaay past that. He’s full-fledged gay…well, maybe not “full-fledged”. I’m pretty sure he’s still a virgin, but he is well aware of what turns him on, and that thing is boys. Not boys, but men, really. He’s tried to explain to me what it is that turns him on about guys, but after a few minutes I can’t hear anymore and start to tune him out. I’m sorry, I’m already rambling, and not explaining very well at all.
Anyway, as I said, I’m not really gay. So why am I kissing my best friend, Ben, of some ten-odd years? Well, we’re making a movie. Hence my sister, Becca, recording all of this. We have done this every summer since the 8th grade when my Mom (rest her soul) gave me my first camcorder for my birthday. This summer is a little different though. Becca, who is usually my starlet, refused to act for me. She said she had better things to do (and yet she is willing to play camera-person? Whatever, Becca. Whatever), and wouldn’t star for me. Sooooo, Ben had a script; a little unorthodox script, even for us.
Our previous movies had been something of my own writing. Basically, I’ve been using the tragedy of my Mom’s death for inspiration for far too long. Ben wanted to do something fresh. We tried for a little while to get new actors, but as it turns out…Ben and I don’t really have many other friends. So, we ended up conning (well, she volunteered actually) Becca into playing camera man, while I continued to direct, and Ben was my main actor, while I played the supporting role.
We’re almost done filming. We’re on the last minute of the film actually… All we have to do is lean in and plant one on each other. But as I said…kissing is a funny thing.
“Oh my god Riley; just fucking kiss me,” Ben was starting to get frustrated. We had gone through this about six times already. Every time I looked back at what Becca had shot, I shook my head. I knew this was my fault. I wasn’t feeling the kiss. These characters were supposed to be starting a brand new romance. Shifting from the best friends role to that of lovers. Or at least boyfriends. And, I didn’t have anything to compare that with…Ben and I weren’t like that, and I hadn’t really dated much. Ben dated more girls then I did lately, what with his Mom not believing he was gay.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I just don’t get it!”
“What is there to get?” Ben sighed, shaking his head. “It is fucking cold out side, I am so totally ready to tell you to fuck yourself and leave. Why do you have to be such a damn perfectionist?”
“Ben, this is the last scene of our movie! This is going to like…make or break the movie!”
“What are you talking about? No one is going to see this movie but the three of us!” Ben argued.
“You don’t know that! If it’s really good, maybe I’ll send it out for a contest, or post it on the internet!”
“You post this on the internet and I will be so pissed.”
I got up, stretching my back. My butt was sore from sitting on the fallen tree in the clearing of Jack Henson’s pasture. Behind us, there were a couple of cows grazing moodily, staring as us as though we had like “stolen their spot” or something.
“Maybe we should call it a day?” Becca suggested, “This camera is getting heavy.”
“No, no…one more time.” I shook my head, sitting back down. “If we don’t get it this time, we can call it a day. Lets try and get one more try in before it rains though.”
I took a deep breath. I knew what I wanted to see in this scene. I had to get into that mind-over-matter frame of mind. Yeah, I was kissing Ben, but he wasn’t really Ben. And I wasn’t really Riley. We were two unnamed people, who were just realizing for the first time that we loved the other, and they felt the same way.
The lines went easily, and I hesitated for a moment. Mind over fucking matter, Riley! I reminded myself. As though I were another person, my hands came up to Ben’s face, and I pulled him forward and kissed him. He seemed surprised, and his hands came up to rest on my wrists. Becca coughed. We had held on for a little longer then necessary. I turned red, and pulled my hands away from Ben’s face, getting back up from the tree.
“So, how’d it look?”
“Good,” Becca nodded. She handed off the camera to me, flexing her arm. “That thing is heavy. Are we done for the day?”
I nodded, shutting the camera off without even looking. I could still feel Ben’s mouth on mine, and kind of freaked me out, “Yeah, lets get out of here.” I packed the camera up in bag, and swung it over my shoulder.
Ben stretched as he got up from the tree, “You okay? You look kind of…weird.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I could feel my face flush again. “I think I’m going to start editing tonight. You guys cool with that? Maybe we’ll have this done before Becca leaves next week.”
“Awesome.” Ben nodded. “You want me to stay home tonight then? Let you work your cinematic-magic?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure how I felt about sleeping in the same room with Ben now. Even though we had been doing so almost every night for the last two and a half months.
“Yeah, you can come over. It’s not a big deal.” We started walking towards the gate to head back into town. The walk back home wasn’t long, and Ben departed almost instantly, getting behind the wheel of his bright yellow mustang that was older then he was.
“You sure you’re OK?” Becca yawned, unlocking the front door. “I agree with Ben, you look a little peaked.”
“I’m fine,” I shook my head. “I just can’t believe I spent my day off from hell macking on Ben.”
“Yeah…I have no comment on that. Anyway, I better get ready for work, ‘cause unlike you, I actually do have to work today.” Becca rolled her eyes.
“K. See you later.” I disappeared into my lair, a.k.a. my bedroom, and unpacked my camera to start editing on my computer.
A couple of hours later, I heard the familiar rumble of my Dad’s truck parking in the driveway. I mentally groaned. Lately after work, he had been going out and getting drunk at the bar before meandering his way home after dark. I was relieved he had finally lain off telling me to quitting with my “stupid film shit” now that I had gotten a job at one of the local dives as a waiter.
The door leading from the outside to the kitchen slammed shut. I remained where I was. Let the Beast roam the house. He didn’t need to know where I was. Unfortunatly, he must have realized that I was home because he knocked a few minutes later.
“Riley, you in there?” Dad’s bark was worse then his bite, so to speak. He had a loud, booming kind of voice, that given the right tone would either impress or scare the pants off of you. When he spoke up at his job, foreman at one of the local factories, he never used to use a microphone or a foghorn. One shrill whistle, and a place in the center of the action and everyone could hear what he said. You never wanted to be to close when he opened his mouth.
“Yeah, what’s up? Doors open.” I tried to remain cordial, even though in my mind I was saying Go away, go away, go away.
The door swung open, and Dad filled the doorway with his broad shoulders, “Is there dinner?”
“Umm, I didn’t make anything ‘cause I wasn’t really that hungry, but I can if you want me too.” I offered, turning away from my computer. I didn’t really pay attention to what was on my screen. That was a mistake.
“What the hell is that?” Dad stepped into the room, turning my chair back so we were both facing the computer screen. “Is that you and Ben?”
“Oh, uh…we finished filming today.”
“So you kissed him? Are you two some kind of couple and you didn’t tell me?”
“No!” I insisted. “It’s just part of the movie –Ben wrote it.”
“I don’t care that your friend is a flaming fag, Riley. Don’t go showing this shit to anyone. I don’t want anyone thinking a son of mine is a fucking queer.” He pushed on my chair, sending me into my desk a little more roughly then he probably intended. He didn’t say anything has he straightened up. “I’m going out.” The door slammed behind me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Not long after the roar of Dad’s truck leaving the garage again, Ben’s mustang pulled up to the curb outside of the house. It wasn’t long before he was breathing down my neck as well. His hands were on my shoulders, which is something I probably should have been comfortable with by now, but today for some reason I wasn’t.
“Do you mind not leaning on me, Ben?” I asked, brushing his hands from my shoulders. “You’re kind of hindering my ability to point-and-click.”
“Oh, sorry man,” he backed away to sit on the edge of my double-bed. “So, I saw your Dad’s truck leaving as I was turning on the street. He looked kind of pissed.”
“Yeah…he thinks I’m gay.”
Ben looked amused, “Why?”
“He saw this,” I pulled up the still-frame of our kiss.
“Snap! We look hot!” Ben was up again, his breath warm against my neck. “Is the footage as good as the still?”
“Yeah, it’s a good shot. Becca, though her arm strength is apparently much to be desired, can hold a camera pretty steady.” I selected it to play, and we both watched the scene until the breakaway when Becca’s throat-clearing brought us back to attention. “I’ll have to edit it down, of course.”
“Yeah. It’s a little long. You got nervous and held on that long, or did you really like it that much?” Ben’s eyebrow rose, questioningly.
“Shut up!” I insisted, pushing him away from the back of my chair again. “Go sit down. Cripes.” He laughed, taking his seat on the bed again. He reached for the remote, and watched the news while I continued to edit.
Over the next few days, I noticed that Dad’s stays at home were getting longer and longer. He’d bring home a case of beer and drink in the living room, watching action flicks on cable rather then going out to the bar and watching the game. He also made inadvertent trips upstairs while Ben was over. I finally figured out what he was up to when he disrupted our game of Guitar Hero for the fourth time, when he mentioned his way out: “Why don’t we keep this door open, hm?”
At first Ben didn’t get it.
“Are you sure the noise isn’t going to bother you, Mr. Butters?” He wrinkled his eyebrows, which even I thought had to be the cutest facial expression ever seen on Ben. “I mean, this game gets pretty loud, we don’t want to disrupt your movie.”
“Not a problem,” Dad assured him.
After he was gone, I sighed and got up to shut the door, “Don’t you get it, Ben? He thinks we’re like sexing it up or something.”
“I hardly call video games with you a sexing opportunity, Riley.” Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m not even attracted to you. Ick.”
“…Thanks Ben, that helped my self-esteem so much.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it.” Ben shook his head, setting down the guitar after he had failed again. “Besides, why would your Dad think we were doing something up here? I mean, besides rockin’ it out.”
“I could say so many things to follow that up…” I shook my head. “Look, he’s obviously not OK with my movie, and now he think that the two of us are an item.”
“And I’m saying that you’re being ridiculous.”
“I am not being ridiculous, I am simply telling you that that is what his problem is.” I sat back down, and wasn’t surprised when there was a knock again a few minutes later.
“Yeah?” I actually got up to answer the door this time.
“Didn’t I ask you to keep the door open?”
I sighed, “Look Dad, I’m not really sure what your problem is. Ben and I are just trying to—”
“I just asked you to keep the door open. I didn’t ask for your life’s story, Riley.”
I held back the grumble, “Are you going to tell me what your real problem is, or are we just going to keep ignoring the fact that you’ve become a fag-hating alcoholic?”
My head had never turned so fast as it did when Dad’s hand connected with the side of my face. Behind me, Ben gasped a little. Dad may have been many things, but he had never hit his children before. Even I was a little surprised. Luckily, the redness of my cheek hid the blush that crept up my neck.
“Now say that again,” Dad dared me.
I looked up at him. I could play it cool. I could tell him what he wanted to hear –that I hadn’t said anything, that I would keep the door open like he asked. Or I could be the idiot that I was and repeat myself.
“I asked if we were ignoring the part about you becoming a fag-hating alcoholic.”
“You know, boy, I don’t know what pisses me off more. That you have the gall to use that kind of tone with me, or that you’re calling me an alcoholic.”
“Well you are!” I countered, “Becca and I have barely ever seen you for the last four years since Mom died because you’re wallowing in your own self pity at the bar. Now you think I’m gay and you want to make sure that Ben and I aren’t consummating anything. I’m not gay. We made a movie and I had to kiss him. Actors do it all of the time.” I was waiting for him to slap me again, to make me shut up, but I just kept going and he let me. “Between work and drinking, you aren’t there for either of us. Becca got a job just to stay out of the house. I got a job this summer just to make you shut up because I was tired of you nagging me about it all of the time about how I was never going to amount to anything as a film maker. You aren’t even making an effort anymore to be our father. You’re just this guy that lives in our house, and occasionally remembers to leave out some cash to buy groceries.”
“Is that really what you think?” He asked.
I took a moment before I nodded, “Yeah. That’s really what I think.”
I waited for him to hit me, yell at me, do something to show me how angry I had made him. I couldn’t even bring myself to look up into his face, but when I did I saw how rejected and lowly he looked. My face flushed even darker, and I felt bad for Ben, behind us, who had been watching the whole time.
Dad didn’t say much, just stepped out of the door way and back into the hall, “I’m going out.” He reached to pull the door closed, and I rested my forehead against it. His boots thudded heavily against the stairs, and it sounded like he was in a hurry to put some distance between the two of us.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Ben put his hands on my shoulders again, and for the first time in days, it didn’t feel weird to have him touch me.
“Probably to the bar to get wasted,” I shrugged. The truck rumbled to life outside of the window and the tires squealed as he peeled down the street.
Ben’s thumbs worked in a circular motion against my shoulder blades, “You’re all tense now.” It was weird again, and I pushed him away.
“Please, don’t touch me right now,” I hated that Ben was making me feel like the straight guy. Strong, silent, and making it a major no-no to male-male physical contact.
“Dude, I was just—“
“I know,” I stopped him. “Just not right now, okay? Maybe later.”
He sighed, stepping back from me with his hands raised, “Okay, fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like a queer.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I sighed. “It’s not because you’re gay that I don’t want you touching me, Ben. You know I’m not like that.”
“But you are like that,” Ben shrugged. “The last couple of weeks, you tense up whenever I lean on you or so much as brush hands. If I hugged you right now, what would you do?”
My face, if possible, grew warmer and I admitted; “I’d probably push you away.”
“Exactly,” Ben shoved his hands into his pockets, leaning back on his heels. “And I know it’s probably just because of this problem with your Dad right now, but…if you’re going to keep treating me like the gay friend then I have to treat you like the straight friend. There isn’t an in-between when you’re like this. I want to make you feel better, but I can’t just do that with words, not when I’m dealing with you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.
“This is what I mean. I’m not good with words, Riley. Maybe that’s why I’m such a shit actor. When your Mom died, what did I do for you to make you feel better?”
I took a deep breath, remembering after Mom’s funeral, “You hugged me, listened to me cry…cried with me.”
“Exactly,” he nodded. “We say anything to each other through our mourning period. We don’t use words to get our feelings across to one another unless we’re mad. So, when you don’t let me touch you, I can’t let you know that everything is going to be OK.”
“You could just say ‘Everything is going to be OK’,” I raised an eyebrow.
“But would that mean anything to you?”
I shrugged, “Probably not.”
“Exactly…so, I’m going to let you relax and sleep alone tonight. I’m going to home, and you can think about your problems alone.”
“Wait…” I reached for him, catching his sleeve. “You don’t have to go.”
“Are you going to stop acting like a jackass?” He asked.
“Yes, I’m sorry.” I sighed. I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“Jeez,” He pushed on my forehead, holding me an arms length away. “You’re even gayer then I am.” He made me laugh, and I punched him in the arm as if to establish my manliness again.
“The movie is done…do you want to see it?” I asked, knowing that I wanted Ben to see it before we shared it with Becca.

A few mornings later, Becca was getting ready to leave. Dad had already said his goodbyes to her before heading to work. He had been avoiding me since our blow-up in front of Ben. She was going alone, and I was kind of scared for her, but I knew it would be silly for me to go along with her, even just to spend a few more hours with her.
“You are such a girl,” she laughed at me, closing the back of her small SUV. “I am going to college, Riley. It’s not like I’m going off to war and there is a possibility I won’t come back or something. I’ll be home at Thanksgiving.”
“I know,” I kicked one of her back tires.
“I’ll miss you too,” She moved to wrap her arms around me, but I pushed her away. “Riley, c’mon. What’s this really about?”
“You’re leaving me alone with him. You could have gone to any college you wanted around here, but you chose the one furthest away.” We were both fully aware that the “him” I was referring to was Dad. Drunken old Dad. “There are three colleges within fifty miles of home, Becca, and you could have applied to any of them, but you didn’t.”
“No,” She shook her head. “I didn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I don’t even know why I had opened my mouth. I could have played the part of the eager younger brother, glad to be rid of his sister. But it was to late now. I could make the socially acceptable jokes about visiting and keeping an eye out for hot co-eds for me, but I couldn’t now. It was too late.
“Well, you should get going.” I shoved my hands into my pockets.
“I don’t want to leave with you mad at me, Riley.”
“I’m not mad at you,” I sighed. “I’m irritated with you, and I feel let down by you, but…I’m not mad.”
“Look, I’m thought a long time about going to college closer to home, but I’m sick of being here, Riley. I need to move on, even just temporarily. You’re not the only person I’m leaving behind.”
We stood in silence, and I scuffed the toe of my shoe against the asphalt on the driveway.
“I’ll call when I get there.” She assured me, seeing that I wasn’t going to continue to complain about her leaving me with Dad.
“K,” I nodded. I stepped back away from her, wanting to put some space in between us. I wanted her to leave just as much as I wanted her to stay. Talking to her had become hard all of a sudden. We had said to much, and yet nothing at all.
“Well…I better go,” She opened the driver’s side door, and slid into the seat. I took another step back, as she pulled the door shut, and rolled down the window. The engine roared to life, and she pulled on her seatbelt, but didn’t throw it into drive yet. “Hey, Riley?”
“Yeah?” I asked. I took a step towards the vehicle.
“You’re not really mad at me anymore, are you?”
I shrugged, “No, I’m not mad at you anymore.”
“—Cause, I’m going like a thousand miles away from home, and if I think you’re still mad at me, I’m kind of going to feel like shit, and I’ll probably do crummy in school, and then I’ll flunk out.”
“Well in that case, yes I am totally pissed at you.” I stepped up to the truck, and leaned up to press a kiss to her cheek. “You’re fine, Becca. Have fun, make friends, and don’t forget about home.”
She reached up to brush the tears away from her eyes, “Shit, look what you did. I’m going now before I turn into a fucking fountain or something.” She reached down to shift into reverse.
“Bye, Becca.” I hoped to god that I wasn’t starting to tear up either. I shoved my hands back into my pockets and watched her back out of the driveway. I stood on the sidewalk, watching Becca’s back-bumper disappear towards the Interstate. Once she had vanished completely, it still took me a bit to actually get back into the house. Reaching up, I felt he wet-spots on my face. Shit. Well…at least Becca hadn’t seen.
The house seemed eerie and empty. Dad was at work, Becca was gone, and I had just quit the job that I loathed the day before. With a wide-open schedule, and a video camera in hand, I called up Ben on the kitchen telephone.
“Hey buddy, how do you feel about starting a new project? I’m thinking something real-life…heart-wrenching, but funny… Something along the lines of ‘Life Without Becca’.”
Ben’s laugh in my ear was a nice sound, “Sure, I’ll be right over.”
Yeah, Becca had left, and I had to deal with Dad on my own, but I had a feeling that this year wouldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be.

Life Through Lenses (My CW Short Story)

Note: I'm not sure if I like this. It strays a lot from my original idea, but it should be fine... Tell me what you think/how to fix it/what to cut or add. Originally, I planned for his father (in a drunk rage) to destory his video equipment, and for his sister to give him 1 surviving disk with a touching father/son moment on it, but that didn't happen.

Well, I finally finished my CW Short story, which isn't that very short (9 pages, single spaced). Let me know what you think, if you have any thoughts at all:
Samantha R. Johnson
Life Through Lenses
If this were a film, I would start it with an aerial shot over my city. Not because my city is particularly homey or beautiful… I actually kind of hate my hometown. To many bars and not enough places for me and my friends to just hang out and shoot some good footage for our summer film projects. We’ll make-do though. We have every summer since the 8th grade when my Mom gave me my first camcorder.
That was before the accident though. I try not to dwell on it –loosing my Mom. I mean, just because she died and Dad started drinking and now my sister, Becca, is going to a college in the fall that is a million miles away… I’m not bitter, really. I’m morbidly glad that something so traumatic has happened in my life. I can use it to fuel gut-wrenching films in my future as an award-winning director.
“Riley! Ben is here!” Becca’s voice carried up the stairs.
It was the second week of vacation and after a school year of planning our last movie with Becca before she moved for college, we were ready to start filming.
“Let me grab my camera,” I called back. “We’ll go to the old Mill and start there. You’ve both got your scripts right?”
Becca surprised me, leaning in the doorway of my bedroom, “Riley…I know you’re excited about this being my last summer at home before college and everything, but…”
“Don’t you dare say that you don’t want to be in my movie. You are my starlet. You have been my starlet in all five of my movies. No way am I going to not feature you in this one.”
She sighed, “No offence, but you’re movies are kind of shit. I mean, Ben can’t even really act. Neither can I.”
“Shut up and stop ruining my summer,” I sighed. I swung my camera bag over my shoulder. “C’mon, the mill isn’t going to wait all summer for us.”
It was just getting dark when Becca and I got back home. I was sort of relieved to see that Dad’s truck wasn’t parked in the garage. It meant he was probably getting drunk somewhere, and he wouldn’t hassle me about finding “a real job” and to stop wasting my summer on my silly “shit films”. He didn’t seem to mind Becca’s part in my movies though. Probably because she’s had her future in the bag practically since birth. The fact that she got a full 4-year ride to college probably helps too…oh, and that she’s managed to hold down a part-time job for the past three years.
“We got some really good shots today, Beck. I can just tell this is going to be the best summer ever.”
“I don’t need to voice how big of a nerd you are,” Becca pulled open the fridge. I watched her push past the rows of beer for a lone can of cola near the back.
“You like doing this just as much as I do,” I scoffed at her. She shrugged, opening the can with a crack.
“It’s OK. I don’t really know how available I’m going to be though. Martin has extended my hours quite a bit this summer. I’m almost full-time now.”
And if this were a movie, we would do a montage of all of the heinous things Martin Kurt is –both as my sister’s boss and as her boyfriend. I would probably omit all of the sex scenes though. I’d like to think that my sister is still a virgin, even though the noises I sometimes hear through the walls tell me differently.
“Maybe you should look into getting a job, Riley? I could talk to Marty about hiring you and we could wait tables together. It would be fun!”
“Oh yes…having food thrown at and up on me sounds like a real blast.” I scoffed. “All those recovering drunks must leave excellent tips.”
“C’mon…if you got a job you could start saving up for school, maybe buy some new video equipment. Didn’t you say you wanted to get some new editing software for your computer?”
“Shouldn’t I be getting this lecture from Dad?”
“I’m not lecturing you,” Becca took a drink from her soda. “I just think you’re old enough now that you should start thinking about your future.”
“I think about my future every day. Trust me, I’m just like you. I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole little town and away from--”
“Away from what?” The door had banged open and my Dad carried a paper-wrapped bottle of booze under his arm, his arms laden with plastic sacks filled with a sundry of groceries. Becca moved to take some of them out of his hands and set to putting them away. “You kids do anything productive today?”
“Nothing you would call productive, Daddy. We just worked a little bit on Riley’s new project.” Becca could get away with being slightly cheeky with Dad. If I had tried to talk to him in that tone –even jokingly, he probably would have back-handed me.
“You’re doing that crap again? Christ boy, can’t you find anything better to do?” The bottle from under his arm clunked as he set it down on the counter.
This was my father, Jeff Butters. Fifty-one years old, bitter and cynical. There wasn’t a supportive bone in his body for his artistically gifted son. Maybe it’s because of the way he was raised, maybe it’s because of the way we lost Mom, I don’t really know. I do know though, that I remember Dad being a lot happier when Mom was around. He hassled me a lot less when she was there to support me.
I ignored his comment and changed the subject, “Is it okay if Ben comes over tonight?”
“I suppose so,” was his gruff reply.
I stood, feeling a little useless by the island-counter in the center of the kitchen while Dad and Becca put the groceries away.
“Well…I better go call Ben,” I excused myself, stepping back out of the kitchen. “G’ night.” I picked up my camera bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “Oh –Becca, remember, if it’s raining tomorrow I want to get the shots from inside the diner with Ben. Can you ask Martin if it’s OK?”
“Sure, I’ll ask.”
As I walked away, I heard Dad open his fat mouth.
“Why do you encourage him? It just gets his hopes up that he’s actually got a chance with that shit.”
I ignored the stab in my chest, and ran up the stairs before I could hear more.
“Ben, do you ever feel like your parents hate you?”
We had just finished doing some shots in the diner. It had been a month since we had started the project. Dad had been home a lot lately, opting to drink in front of the television rather then at the bar. Basically this meant a daily nagging about how I wasted my time and why couldn’t I be more like Becca and get a real job?
“No, not really. Why? Is your Dad still being an asshole?”
“I guess I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal to him what I do in my spare time. I mean, what the hell? So what I’m not earning some extra cash, or worrying about college after senior year.”
“Hmm…whatever,” Ben shrugged. “Oh! I can’t hang out tonight. I have a thing.”
“A thing?” I asked, “Since when do you have things that I’m not a part of?”
“Ooh, jealous much? Don’t worry about it. My Mom is making me go out with Betsy Collins. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her I have no interest in dating girls.” Ben rolled his eyes.
While I had my struggles trying to get my Dad to lay off about my interests and past times, Ben had his own problems. He hadn’t ever formally come out to his parents, but he had informed them that he wasn’t interested in dating girls. His mother thought that there was something horribly wrong with him, or that he was just bitterly shy. Thus, she had begun to set him up on dates with the prettiest girls she could find that she could talk into doing so. Ben went along with it, mostly because it meant a free movie and dinner at his parent’s expense.
“Sounds like a blast. You want me to tag along? Maybe she’d pass the word of confirmation to you gayness to your Mom.”
“No, that’s OK. Besides, if Mom thinks you’re gay, she won’t let me come over anymore.”
“Scary,” I looked up as Becca dropped our respective plates of chicken fried steak and potatoes in front of us, rather unceremoniously
“Riley, I have to quit the project,” She sighed. “Marty has me working totally heinous shifts the next couple of weeks. I’m not going to have the time.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve already shot over half of it!”
“Sorry Bro, but I can’t help you. Find yourself a new leading lady.” She shook her head, reverting back into Super Waitress. . “Can I get you guys anything else?”
Ben was completely unfazed by the news, “Could I get some pie-of-the-day? With some soft-serve vanilla ice cream?”
“Sure thing,” She nodded and walked away without a second glance at me.
“Shit!” My fingers pulled easily through my hair. “We have to scrap the whole thing! We don’t have time to start another full film, not if we want to be done before the summer ends.”
“Well…why don’t we just piece something together with what we’ve got so far?”
“Because there isn’t a story with what we’ve got so far, Ben. With what we’ve got, all you see is bad acting and a pissy red-head with a holier-then-thou attitude.”
“…I’m a bad actor?” Ben shoved his food around on his plate. “Jeez, Riley. You could have at least broken it to me a little more gentle. Cripes. If I’m such a horrible—”
“I never said you were horrible.”
“—then why did you keep casting me?”
“Because you’re my best friend, that’s why.” I scoffed, mixing together my potatoes and gravy on my plate.
“Oh, well then…”
“Look –this isn’t about your poor acting, Ben. This is about my cow-sister ruining our long-standing tradition.”
“What did you just call me?” Becca was back with Ben’s peach-pie. I noticed she placed it down next to him a little more gently then she had our dinners.
“I didn’t call you anything,” I denied. “Jeez, you could be nice to us. We’re paying customers, you know.”
“Yes, paying customers, not tipping ones.”
“Oh, so if I started tipping you, you wouldn’t quit the movie.”
“How can you call it a ‘movie’, Riley? It’s me and Ben in a link-up of stupid dialogue, in inconsistent settings, with one of us dying a disturbing and lame death at the end.”
“I never said I was script-writer, Becca.”
“Look, maybe…maybe you should just forget about the film this summer. Got a job and save for college.” She pulled a paper from her pocket. “I got you an application for the diner. Please, at least think about it?” She flattened out the application next to me, and I looked at it in disgust.
“Why would I want to work here?”
“Because Marty and I guarantee you a job here,” Becca crossed her arms. “Excuse me, I need to get back to my other tables.”
Ben waited until she had walked way before taking the application, “You gonna fill it out?”
“No,” I shook my head. “That would be like giving in.”
“Maybe it’s not a bad idea, Riley.” Ben shrugged. “We could work on a smaller project, just the two of us...”
“We need more friends,” I mused. “Why don’t we have more friends?”
“Well, because I’m the town homo and you’re the weird kid with the video camera,” Ben shrugged. “I think we might intimidate people.”
“…Right. We should have thought about the consequences of our interests beforehand.”
“Glad to see you’re finally giving up on the whole faux-director thing,” Dad clapped me on the shoulder after my first shift at the diner, a week later. I was trying my hand scrubbing the smell of burgers and French fries off of my skin at the kitchen sink, but I wasn’t having much luck.
“I didn’t give up on it, Dad. I’m just doing this to get you and Becca off my back. Ben and I are just working on something else since Becca ditched us.” I turned off the water, and dried off my hands and arms with a dishtowel. “I brought home some dinner if you’re interested.”
Dad looked confused, “If your sister isn’t in your movie, what are you working on? All you’ve got is Ben.”
“Jeez Dad, could you make me sound any more pathetic?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Riley. We’re both fully aware that you’re a little lacking in the friends department. Who’re you coercing into being in one of your hack-films?”
“We’re doing a short film, it’s about ten minutes long. It’s something Ben wrote. We’re still looking for some actors. Right now, we’re deciding where we want to film it. We were hoping we could get Jack Hansen’s permission to film out behind his house.”
“Jack Hansen? You don’t want to film in his back yard; lotta snakes. Why don’t you film in the woods behind the Mill?”
“There’s a clearing in Mr. Hansen’s woods that I really like, that looks out over the creek he has. It fits our setting better.” I was mildly surprised at the interest Dad was taking in my project. This wasn’t like him, and was actually kind of scary in a way.
“Hrmph,” He shrugged, going for the fridge to grab his first beer of the evening. “Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Just so long as you’re not filling all of your time with this nonsense anymore.”
I held back my sigh, “Well, I better go call Ben. He was going to scope out some actors for us, so I better go and see if he found anyone interesting.”
I disappeared up the stairs as quickly as I could before Dad could say anything more to me.
“Ben, I don’t get why you want to find two new actors. I mean, why can’t you just play your part?”
“Because, you said it yourself, Riley, I’m a crap actor.”
“What makes you think that these guys would be any better?”
We were sitting on a bench in the park, watching the crowd. Ben’s eyes kept straying towards a couple of guys playing Frisbee with a Labrador. Mine kept straying the opposite direction at a game of soccer, mostly eyeing the goalie; a tall girl with her hair pulled back in a pony tail through her ball-cap.
“I don’t know. I think it could be cool if we could make some new friends though, you know?” Ben pulled his eyes away from the Frisbee players to look at me. “Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know. I like this idea, I think we could do something with it, but…I dunno, man. Finding two guys willing to stage a coming-out story for us? Even for ten minutes…I just don’t know.”
“Well…you know, we could always just do it ourselves; the two of us.”
“If I’m in it, who’s going to hold the camera?”
“We could use the tripod, and we could do multiple takes for different angles.”
“That sounds like a lot of editing work,” I shook my head. “Plus, it’s not just about doing it in different angles, Ben. What about moving shots?”
“Oh…I dunno. Maybe we could talk Becca into helping us? I don’t think she’d mind helping if she didn’t have to be filmed.”
“Do I have to kiss you?” I asked.
“Christ, Riley!”
“Well!” I shrugged. “You’re the one who wrote the script. You never actually showed it to me, you know. You just kind of told me what it was about.”
“You don’t have to,” He rolled his eyes. “Christ. Why would I want to kiss you anyway?”
I let his question fall and instead turned back to look at the soccer game. But my mind wasn’t on the game, it was on my camera, sitting at my feet. I could just see how well the two of us would fit on the screen. Our conversation was movie-magic. Just two guys, one gay and one straight, trying to understand the world in the others eyes.
It dawned on me that Ben might have a crush on me. I slid a glance his way, but he had gone back to watching the guys playing with the dog. We had been friends since kindergarten, and I had never really looked at Ben in a sexual light, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done so to me. I guess I could say that I loved him…like my brother or something. I didn’t really have any more interest in kissing him then I did Becca.
“Why do you keep staring at them?” I finally asked, having watched along with him for a few minutes.
“I’m trying to decide if they’re a couple or if they’re just friends or something. The dog seems to belong to the blonde guy, but there’s something about the way they act with each other.” Ben tilted his head to the side.
“What?” I raised an eyebrow. “Whatever, man. I’ll talk to Becca about being our cameraman…woman…person. I gotta get to work. I’ll see you tonight?”
“Yeah,” He nodded. He didn’t look at me as I walked away, still watching the guys with the dog.
Another three weeks later, only two left to the summer, we finished the film. I hadn’t got it edited yet, but with Becca’s help on the camera, we had loads of good footage. Not just of the film, but of just our summer in general. I liked to think that the more that I filmed, the greater of a montage I would be able to create out of it later. Maybe none of it made sense now, but perhaps one day it would all mesh together into a neat little package.
“Finally finished your film, huh?” Dad was leaning against the counter when I walked in from work. I fished the change and dollar bills from my pockets that I had earned in tips for the afternoon, and nodded.
“Yeah, I just got a bit of editing to do.”
“So, what’s it about?”
“Uh…” I realized Dad had never asked me what my movies were about. He had never even seen one of them, which I found to be a little odd all of a sudden. “Well…Ben wrote the script. He would probably do a better job at explaining the whole thing then I would.”
“It’s a ten minute movie, right? How hard can it be to explain?”
“Well…err, basically it’s these two guys who are best friends,” I started. “And uh…the Ben’s character decides to come clean with my character about errr…”
Now, my Dad has never really been outwardly homophobic or anything. But I’m fairly certain that he isn’t going to be thrilled that his son was taking part in a film about homosexual teenagers. I also don’t think he would be particularly keen to find out that I’d been sleeping in close quarters with what he would probably fondly term a ‘queer’ for the past two and half a months. Not that he had anything to worry about –I’m as straight as the day is long, but parents have this uncanny ability to jump to conclusion.
“—and keep in mind that this is totally fiction,” I let out of a nervous laugh. “But he comes out to his friend that he’s gay—” I watched Dad’s face for a sign of emotion, but there wasn’t really one. He just continued to sip his beer.
“Uh huh…” He probed. “And? That’s the whole story?”
“Well, no…See, after Ben’s character tells my character that he’s, you know, gay, my character tell’s Ben’s character that he’s…gay too.”
“Uh huh.”
“And, so…I guess, they sort of get together.”
“This isn’t like a porn or anything is it?”
“No!” I was a little perturbed by the eerie acceptance.
“And this is just fiction right? You and Ben are just friends.”
“Well yeah! Jeez, Dad!”
“Well, the kid does spend almost every night here. I figured I should ask, given the content of your film.”
“It’s not like there’s anything dirty in it!” I protested.
“Uh huh.”
“There isn’t! There isn’t even kissing or anything!”
“Well, I suppose that’s a welcome relief. You’ll have to show it to me when you get it edited.” Dad leaned over to set the now empty beer can on the floor, crushing it under his heel with a creaking crack.
“Uh…okay.” I nodded. “I guess so.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be glad that Dad was taking an interest or if I should be a little worried. If he was taking an interest, there might be some kind of ulterior motive, Then again, I could just be being paranoid.
Two days later (and 10 left in the countdown for my senior year of high school, 8 in the countdown for Becca leaving for college), Becca, Ben, Dad and I sat down on the couch to watch the final film. Having Dad there was odd. He had never shown any interest whatsoever in my movies before, and why he would want to see this film was even odder.
“Well, uh…this is it.” Usually when we debuted the films we had worked on, I would feign a preachy speech, thanking Becca and Ben for their help at another great summer, but it dawned me on that this summer hadn’t been that spectacular. Becca had deserted me as my starlet, I had to act in one of my own movies –and play a gay guy at that. Dad had started drinking at home rather then in the bar, and Becca was still going to leave me in eight days to go and further her education, two states away.
I set the DVD in the disc tray and pushed it back into place. The player whirled to life, and I sat down on the couch between Dad and Becca, picking up the remote, selecting the “play” button on the front menu.
The movie was good. Probably better then our original plan, actually. Ben was a good writer, and I was a good director. We were both mediocre actors, but two out of three wasn’t to shabby. The movie ended with the two of us leaning towards each other as if to kiss before a still-frame and then a rolling of the credits. The smile on my face was hard to hide, and I bit my lip as hit stop, returning to the main menu.
“So?” I asked.
“Damn,” Ben leaned on his elbow. “I am a shit actor.”
“Shut up, you were both very good.” Becca put an arm around each of our shoulders, pulling us in for a hug. “I’m glad I could help. It’s seriously one of your best, Riley. I’m proud of you.”
I turned to Dad, who was sipping another beer, still kind of staring at the television.
“Dad?”
“Hmm? Oh, it was OK, I guess. If you’re into that kind of thing.”
“You didn’t like it.” I don’t know why this came as a surprise to me. I felt as though I should explain that this wasn’t the type of movie I typically filmed. Explain something to make him see that this was actually good. He shrugged.
“Oh, I liked it fine.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. I wanted to ask him why he suddenly cared. I had been making movies since the eighth grade, but he had never bothered to see any of them. I wanted to know why he never seemed to give a damn anymore. But I didn’t ask. Maybe because I was scared to know the answers, maybe because I knew that we would then argue about Mom. I got up from the couch, and removed the DVD from the player, placing it carefully back in the case, keeping my mouth shut.
Eight days later, Becca packed up her car. Dad had already said his goodbyes to her before heading to work. She was going alone, and I was kind of scared for her, but I knew it would be silly for me to go along with her, even just to spend a few more hours with her.
“You are such a girl,” she laughed at me, closing the back of her small SUV. “I am going to college, Riley. It’s not like I’m going off to war and there is a possibility I won’t come back or something. I’ll be home at Thanksgiving.”
“I know,” I kicked one of her back tires.
“I’ll miss you too,” She moved to wrap her arms around me, but I pushed her away. “Riley, c’mon. What’s this really about?”
“You’re leaving me alone with him. You could have gone to any college you wanted around here, but you chose the one furthest away.” We were both fully aware that the “him” I was referring to was Dad. Drunken old Dad. “There are three colleges within fifty miles of home, Becca, and you could have applied to any of them, but you didn’t.”
“No,” She shook her head. “I didn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I don’t even know why I had opened my mouth. I could have played the part of the eager younger brother, glad to be rid of his sister. But it was to late now. I could make the socially acceptable jokes about visiting and keeping an eye out for hot co-eds for me, but I couldn’t now. It was too late.
“Well, you should get going.” I shoved my hands into my pockets.
“I don’t want to leave with you mad at me, Riley.”
“I’m not mad at you,” I sighed. “I’m irritated with you, and I feel let down by you, but…I’m not mad.”
“Look, I’m thought a long time about going to college closer to home, but I’m sick of being here, Riley. I need to move on, even just temporarily. You’re not the only person I’m leaving behind.”
“I doubt that leaving Martin is much of a loss, Beck.” I scoffed.
“You may not like him, but he’s always been really nice to me. And don’t forget that he’s your boss.”
“Just because he’s my boss, doesn’t mean I have to like him.” Becca sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. I watched her breath deeply for a minute, before I sighed too. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop being an ass.” I gave her a short hug. “Really, you should be going. Traffic is going to be hell if you don’t get moving soon.”
“I’ll call when I get there.” She assured me.
“K,” I nodded. I stepped back away from her, wanting to put some space in between us. I wanted her to leave just as much as I wanted her to stay. Talking to her had become hard all of a sudden. We had said to much, and yet nothing at all.
“Well…I better go,” She opened the drivers side door, and slid into the seat. I took another step back, as she pulled the door shut, and rolled down the window. The engine roared to life, and she pulled on her seatbelt, but didn’t throw it into drive yet. “Hey, Riley?”
“Yeah?” I asked. I took a step towards the vehicle.
“You’re not really mad at me anymore, are you?”
I shrugged, “No, I’m not mad at you anymore.”
“—Cause, I’m going like a thousand miles away from home, and if I think you’re still mad at me, I’m kind of going to feel like shit, and I’ll probably do crummy in school, and then I’ll flunk out.”
“Well in that case, yes I am totally pissed at you.” I stepped up to the truck, and leaned up to press a kiss to her cheek. “You’re fine, Becca. Have fun, make friends, and don’t forget about home.”
She reached up to brush the tears away from her eyes, “Shit, look what you did. I’m going now before I turn into a fucking fountain or something.” She reached down to shift into reverse.
“Bye, Becca.” I hoped to god that I wasn’t starting to tear up either. I shoved my hands back into my pockets and watched her back out of the driveway. I stood on the sidewalk, watching Becca’s back-bumper disappear towards the Interstate. Once she had vanished completely, it still took me a few moments to actually get back into the house. Reaching up, I felt he wet-spots on my face. Shit. Well, at least Becca hadn’t seen.

Hades and His Lover (Part 11)

Part 11

“You’re leaving?” I leaned up on my elbow, watching the dark haired beauty that I had come to know rather well the past week –four days more then he had intended on originally staying.
“I have to get back to work,” He turned back to me. I had grown accustomed to seeing the charred sections of flesh that marred his otherwise perfect torso. After our first encounter, he had finally allowed me to see him in a full naked glory, framed by perfectly shaped black wings.
“You have reapers now…” I chided, moving across the bed. “Do you really have to go?”
“I do,” He smiled, pulling back on his jeans. “But, I’ll be back. If you’ll allow me to, that is.”
“I don’t know…we’re becoming rather attached. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t come back.” I was teasing him, but at the same time I was being rather honest. He hadn’t completely replaced Marius, but I could see myself feeling for him the same way –or at least similarly.
He was quiet, shoving his feet back into his boots before maneuvering his t-shirt over his head and wings. Once he had pulled his jacket back on, he leaned over me on the bed. “I’ll miss you,” He kissed me. Then he pushed the blankets back, teasing me as he lapped a line from the base to the tip of my member. “I’ll miss this.” He grinned, backing away. “But I’ll be back, eventually. Just call for me, if you need anything.”
“You’ll always have a room here, should you need one.” I reminded him.
“I know.”
“Where will you go?”
“I think I’ll go see my brother for a bit. Then I’ll train my new reapers.”
“Have fun, Thanatos.” I pulled the sheets back around myself. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t,” He assured me with another kiss. “Goodbye, Hades.”

“You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Marius’s voice surprised me as I entered my bed chambers for the first time since Thanatos had left.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unbuttoning my shirt to change for the evening.
“I heard you sought revenge for my sleeping with Jacob. I wondered if it was true or not. That’s all.”
“And if it is?”
“I want to know, so I can kill him.”
“Blood thirst isn’t really your style, darling. Besides, you can’t kill a god.”
“You slept with Zeus again?”
“No,” I shook my head.
“Then who? I can still make their existence miserable.”
“You know –I had Jacob within my grasp. I was prepared to rip him to bloody pieces, but I didn’t. So please, leave my second lover alone.”
Marius balked, “L-lover? He is your lover?”
“It certainly felt that way after awhile. He made me feel…good. Like you did. I’ve never felt that way when I’ve been another person –aside from you. But you aren’t my little slave boy anymore, remember?”
Marius’s face burned read, “So, you’ve replaced me then.”
I turned from where I had been pulling a fresh shirt from the closet, “Excuse me?”
“You’ve replaced me.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “I made you angry, you jumped at the chance to fall in love again, and now I’ve been replaced.”
“No, Marius. I could never replace you.” I sighed, crossing to the bed where he had begun to hide his face in his palms. “I said Thanatos was my lover. He’ll never be my partner. That is a position reserved for you, Marius, and you alone. No one will even come close to replacing you. It wouldn’t be possible.” I pulled him close, cradling his head against my bare chest.
“But…Thanatos?!” His hands pressed against my stomach, pushing me away to look into my face again.
“Oh, did I let that slip?”
“Yes, you did! How did that happen?! Did you approach him, or was it the other way ‘round?”
“It was…mutual. I wasn’t coerced, Marius.” I shook my head. “He asked me if I would be interested, and I said yes.”
“I never liked the way that he looked at you.” Marius shook his head, “I can’t believe you slept with him!”
“Why is it so hard to believe?” I asked.
“He’s so unlike me! I didn’t think you liked the dark brooding sort.”
“I think I like a little of everything, Marius.” I smiled softly. “Are you jealous of him?”
“Of course not; you are being ludicrous… Should I be? Did it mean something to you?”
“Did sleeping with Thanatos mean something?”
“Yes, that is what I said.” He nodded.
I shrugged, “I guess it depends on what you mean, ‘did it mean something’. Of course it meant something, Marius. Sex always means something.”
“That’s not true. When I sleep with Jacob, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“You feel nothing for him? Nothing at all?”
“I do not love him,” Marius shook his head. “If I do not love him, it does not mean anything.”
“Oh, you want to know if I love him. Then…yes.” I nodded. “I love Thanatos. I love talking with him, lying next to him, having sex with him, I even loved watching him walk out of the door to go back to his job.”
“Then I was replaced.”
“Marius, I love you too. It is two different kinds of love. You wouldn’t understand, not if you didn’t find the same thing.”
“I am not listening to this anymore. Goodbye,” He pushed me further away, sliding from the bed. I grabbed his wrist, pulling him back and pushing him into the pillows.
“Why did you really come here?”
“I told you –I wanted to hear from your lips that you had found someone else.”
“Because you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous!”
“Yes you are. If you weren’t feeling something right now, you wouldn’t be close to tears, and struggling under me.”
“I’d tell you to go to hell, but it would be kind of redundant. Please get off of me,” He stopped struggling.
I stepped back, “Marius, if you leave this unresolved, you aren’t welcome to come back.”
“That won’t be a problem.” He got off of the bed on the other side. With the bed between us, he took a moment to straighten his clothes again, and brush his hair back. “I don’t think I have anything more to say to you.”
“So, this is it? This is our permanent goodbye? You’re going to walk out of the door and spend the second eternity on Earth-Two playing supreme ruler and I’m going to stay here and play the part of the benevolent God of the Dead?”
“I wouldn’t call you benevolent, but yes. That sounds about right.” Marius looked up at me. “It’s not going to work, trying a ‘long distance’ relationship, Hades. We’re both very busy. We don’t have time for one another.”
“I always have time for you, Marius.”
“No, you don’t.” He started towards the portal that he had opened between our bedrooms.
“When you change your mind, when you’re done playing your game…I’ll be here. I’ll take you back.”
“It’s okay. I don’t need you.”
“You don’t need me now, but you will soon.”
He disappeared rather unceremoniously, and I knelt back down on the bed. In the matter of hours, I had had two lovers leave me. Thanatos, to return back to his way of life, and now Marius. Returned for mere moments before abruptly declaring an official end to our millenniums together, never to be heard from again. And it wasn’t the fact that he had left that was so direly painful to me at that particular moment. Instead, it was the fact that he hadn’t blessed me with the privelage of letting me hear him call me “Master” one last time.
I wasn’t sure when I would, if ever, see Marius again. But I needn’t have worried. Just as easy as it was to avoid someone unscrupulous, it was also rather easy to watch him secretly. Over the next few years, even though I was rather pleased with my brief encounters with Thanatos –sometimes as brief as him simply popping in to give me a rather unchaste kiss, I still found myself worrying over Marius’s well being. Even though he never saw me, I still visited. Jacob made a good companion for him, and contacted me if things ever seemed to be going awry. During the second year of Marius’s stay at on Earth, Jacob contacted me via the mirror to inform me that Marius had begun to cut himself on a rather alarming basis, and rather then healing to leave smooth skin, it was actually beginning to scar.
“Then talk to him, you idiot.” I scoffed at him. “You can never truly be Marius’s lover if you aren’t willing to get to know him –he may be a god, but he is still a being with a personality and emotions. Something is bothering him –get to the bottom of it.”
Jacob must have heeded my advice because I did not hear from him again for quite some time. The next time, he contacted me about himself, not about Marius.
“I don’t feel as though I’m meeting his needs anymore,” He was a bit older now, and the labor was looking as though it was beginning to get to him. “I can’t…I can’t satisfy him.”
“Then you need to find your replacement, don’t you?”
“I’ve grown attached so attached to him, how can I…how could I do that?”
“Jacob, you said so yourself…you’re getting older. Marius doesn’t age –he’s and immortal twenty summers forever. If you don’t think you please him, replace yourself.”
“Will he take such a change so easily?”
“You won’t know until you ask.”
Earth II was obviously becoming a success. Zeus decided it was safe to celebrate it, and invited all known gods and deities to Mount Olympus for the celebration. I was excited that I would get a chance to see Thanatos again –whom I hadn’t had the pleasure of sharing a bed with in far to long, and was even interested in seeing how Marius would be received at the home of the Gods.
“Hades, you’re looking well.” Zeus clapped me on the shoulder. The party wasn’t quite into full swing yet, but I had spotted Thanatos giving me a raised eyebrow moments earlier, enticing me.
“Thank you. You aren’t looking bad yourself, Zeus. Did you have business with me, or were you just saying Hello?”
“I want to apologize. I haven’t seen you lately in order to tell you that I’m sorry…about Marius. I was cruel of me separate the two of you, and I don’t like seeing him so unhappy. I do care about you. Both of you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I thought you may need some time apart, but…I can see that I was wrong.”
“No,” I shook my head. “You were right. We did need time apart, and we are apart. We’re happy.”
“But not like before,” He shook his head. “You put on this façade, Hades. I know what you’re really feeling. It tears you apart inside that he’s fucking someone else.”
“Then I’m sure he’s not particularly happy that I’m fucking ‘round either.” I shrugged. “Excuse me, but my lover is trying to catch my eye, and it has been such a long time since I’ve gotten a good fuck out of him.” I stepped away from Zeus as quickly as I could without seeming as though I were trying to run away from him. My arm slid around Thanatos’s and I lead him towards the door.
“Hmm, I was worried he would never shut up.” Thanatos wasn’t wearing his heavy jacket anymore, and looked rather nice in the post-apocalyptic clothing. He was holding his wings pressed against his back, and I lead him out onto one of the empty balconies so that he could spread them out.
“Hmm, I’ve missed you.” I pulled him close, savoring the sweet taste of wine from his mouth. “You haven’t come to see me in such a long time.”
“I’m sorry –work and everything. It keeps me fairly busy.”
“Maybe you should hire on a few more reapers. And spend more time with me. I wouldn’t mind loosing the souls if it meant I could sleep with you a few nights a month.”
“Aw, are my occasional appearances and in-and-out fuckings not doing it for you, Hades? My apologies –I will admit, I am quite the cad.”
I smiled, kissing him again, letting my hand fondle the front of his trousers, “I can think of a few ways for you to make up for it.”
“Oh, I’m sure I can think up a few myself,” He assured me, his arm wrapping around my waist.
“Should we excuse ourselves quietly from the party and retire for the evening to my suite?” I suggested. “I’m also sure that Zeus wouldn’t object to us borrowing from his private toy chest either.”
“Hmm…tempting, but I think I prefer to just use our own bodies for pleasure if you don’t mind.”
“Aw, and here I thought you were going to be fun.” My tongue explored the confines of his mouth for a moment, my fingers still groping him through the front of his trousers. “You are so delectable.”
“You’re not so unsatisfying yourself.” Thanatos teased. “C’mon –lets try and get through the horde and back to your room. I’d like to test out some of our ideas.”
“I’m sure you would.” I hooked a finger in the collar of his shirt, tugging him through the throng of people, and head on into Marius. His face turned red, and his hand around Hestia’s waist tightened.
“Hestia!” I ignored Marius, and instead wrapped my arms around my sister’s waist. I was genuinely glad to see her. She had been spending a lot of time on Earth II, spreading the idea of the Family Hearth to the new civilizations. “You look wonderful!”
“Thank you,” She grinned. “You don’t look so bad yourself. Hello, Thanatos. I heard the two of you were getting friendly.”
Thanatos grinned, a hand being placed on my hip, “Well…he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Besides, I’ve been dying to get my hands on his man for an eternity already.” His pressed a kiss under my ear. “Hello Marius.” He was the first to acknowledge him standing there, seething. “Is something the matter? You’re turning quite red…”
Marius didn’t speak, shaking his head, “No, of course not. It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’ve decided to take some time off in order to pursue other…interests.”
Thanatos smiled slight, and leaned down to whisper, rather loudly, “Not to cut this short, but if I don’t have you naked in a few minutes, I think I’ll be driven eternally mad. What say you?”
“I say, I think we should be on our way.” I grinned. “Good nigh, Hestia. Please, pass along the Thanatos and I have decided to retire for the night and we’ll see everyone when the festivities resume tomorrow.”
“Good night, brother.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Come along, Marius Darling. We still need to tell Zeus our news!”
“—News?” I stopped her. “What news?”
“Oh! You’re standing right in front of us, and we haven’t said a word! Marius and I are getting married.”
My world stopped. My heart stopped its beat, and my breath caught in my throat. Thanatos’s hand gripped a little harder on mine at the news. Shock flooded over me.
“Married?” I finally gasped. “I…that…” I couldn’t find the words to express the pain that was stabbing repeatedly into my stomach. “I’m very happy for you.” I hoped she couldn’t tell that I was lying. She was obviously thrilled.
“Oh –Marius, you’re holding me too tight.” She pushed on his hand for a moment before turning to me again. “Yes –we’ve seen a lot of each other since I’ve started my work on Earth-Two. We decided it just a few days ago. Jacob is getting older, you know, and Marius doesn’t want just a replacement lover…and…” She turned to smile at him. He smiled softly back at her. “And we love each other.”
“Do you now?” For the first time I looked at Marius.
“Yes, we do.” They were the first words he had spoken to me in years, and the pierced into me like daggers. “I’m not…interested in men anymore.” He brushed a lock of Hestia’s hair behind her ear. “Not since I found out just how well a man and a woman fit together.”
She giggled softly, “He’s joking –we haven’t…not yet. We’ve decided to wait.”
“Only at your insistence,” He chided. His lips pressed against hers, and I nearly keeled over. My heard felt as though he had reached through my chest and grabbed a hold of it, and the nights wine was creeping up my throat.
“Well, we’ll leave you two love-birds alone then. Good night.” Thanatos saw my discomfort immediately, and grabbed my arm. “C’mon Hades.”
Once we were in the privacy of my private room, I collapsed on the bed, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“Are you alright?” Thanatos straddled my hips, unbuttoning my shirt to stroke his fingers down my chest. “You looked ready to pass out.”
“No, I am not fucking alright. My partner for an entire fucking eternity is marrying my fucking sister!” I snapped, and then covered my mouth with my hand. I looked at his face, before I sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to take this out on you.” I pulled him down to kiss his lips. “He shouldn’t matter to me, but he…he does.”
“You still love him.”
“I will always love him.”
“I’ll never quite measure up to him, will I?” Thanatos asked, his member rubbing against mine through the cloth of our trousers. He was hardening, and it wasn’t quite a secret that he was making a similar impression on me.
I shook my head, “I have feelings for you, I adore you…but no. You’ll never be the same.”
He nodded, “I guess I can live with that. If you can, that is. Can you live without him, Hades?”
“I have for this long,” I shrugged, brushing his hair behind his ear, before pulling him down to whisper lucidly in his ear. “Fuck me. Make me forget all about him.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.” He whispered back.
In a moment, our clothes was gone. His mouth seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As soon as I comprehended his lips touching, his tongue lapping in one place, they would be somewhere else, leaving no inch of my skin untouched. When he finally wrapped his mouth around my member, I was itching to bury myself inside of him, or at least get my own taste of the dark-haired beauty.
“I told you to fuck me,” I chastised, bringing his mouth back to mine. “You’re teasing me. Do the deed or get out of the bedroom.”
“It’s a good thing I know you don’t mean that, or you might have had me worried there,” His tongue took a moment to explore past my lips, grazing my teeth and greeting my own tongue before he returned his mouth to my member. I groaned, my fingers stretching down his shoulders to take hold of his wing-joints and grasping them firmly. He groaned in annoyance, his feathers ruffling to brush my hands away.
“—Hey!” I stopped him he took his mouth away from my member, and getting up on his knees to suck on his own fingers. “Your chest!”
“Yes?” He looked down. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“Your burns are completely gone! When did that happen?”
“Umm…A few months ago.” He shrugged. “I told you I was healing.”
“It took a long time,” My fingers traced the spot where I knew that a large mark had once been, right above the hem of where his t-shirt usually lay. “You’re perfect again.”
“You don’t like it?” He asked, probing his own fingers into his anus. I groaned, watching him work himself slowly, preparing for my onslaught into his rectum.
“I love it,” I assured him, stroking his member. He groaned, pushing his fingers deeper. “And I love watching you finger yourself like that. It’s very sexy.”
“Shut up,” He blushed pink, his other hand brushing mine away from his cock. “Don’t touch me when I’m doing this. It’s distracting and makes me want to come.”
“Then by all means –come.” I pulled him forward, engulfing my mouth over the head. He groaned, his fingers pulling free, and his hands went to my shoulders. I laughed, licking my own fingers before probing them into him. “Hmm, you’re tight.”
“You get me excited,” He admitted. “You’re hard as a rock –put it in me?”
I lay back again, folding my hands behind my head as he lowered himself over top of me. Once he was fully impaled, his hands pressed against my chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked, placing a hand on his hip. His member was straight and stiff laying against my stomach. I ran my other hand along it, rubbing it against my stomach.
“You fill me up,” He leaned forward just a little, and I sat up enough to meet his lips. “You always have.”
“Hmm, I think we could still get a bit more in you.” I reached around to smack his ass lightly, and he tightened around me, hard. “Ooh, that feels good.”
“I’ll bet it does,” He grinned, beginning to rock up and down over me. His cock lifted a few inches from my chest before slapping back down. I groaned.
“I like the way this looks…” I leaned up on my elbows. “Watching you take me and seeing your own cock moving along with the ride. I wish I could move in the right way that I could suck it for you.” I sighed, “We’ll have to make due though.” I took him in my fist, and he groaned as I began to stroke him in unison to the thrusts he was pushing over my member. It wasn’t long before we were both spent for the first time, my come seeping into his backside, and then trickling the length of my member once it had popped out of his orifice, and his own come splattered across my chest and face.
“You look good, covered in come.” He licked a trace of it from my cheek. “Fuck, I could just lay here and rub my dick against you for days.”
“I think that would stop being fun after the chapping started,” I teased.
“But until then it would be fun…Rubbing myself raw against your soft skin, coating you in a thin layer of semen, tasting it from your skin.” He groaned, lapping more of it from my face. His tongue felt good, even on my face, and even better when he started circling my nipples, his hand rubbing in the rest of the remains into my skin. Then he lay back next to me, his hand around my still semi-hard appendage.
“Are you ever satisfied?” He began slowly pumping my member.
“Hmm,” I shrugged. “I am always satisfied…I’m just also always ready for another go. Aren’t you?”
He shook his head, “Not nearly as fast as you are.” He took his hand away to rub hand over his own soft member. “See? I lick come from your body and grope you, but no reaction down here. It’s too early.” He stretched, pushing a leg over mine. “I know what will get it up though.” He raised a suggestive eyebrow.
“Oh?”
He grinned, straddling me again, but this time, he lowered his groin to mine, pressing our members –skin to skin, together. Sure enough, within moments, I felt him stirring against me, “I like the feeling of your cock against mine.”
“If we do that, we need lubrication.” I told him. “Make it slick so they slide more easily.”
“Don’t worry, I came prepared.” He leaned over the side of the bed, careful not to move our pricks to far from one another and reached for his trousers. He pulled a small clay bottle from the depths of one of the pockets and uncorked it with his teeth to pour the liquid liberally between our bodies. The liquid was still a bit cold, and I gasped as it landed on us. He corked the bottle again before his hands went to our members, brushing it over them. Then he grasped both of them in his hand, holding them together while he thrust his hips back and forth.
“You’re to far away,” I protested, wrapping my arms around him, and pulling one of his legs over my hip, our groins pressed together between our bodies, still slippery. His chest pressed to mine. “Okay, now do your pelvic-hip thrusts…and kiss me, damn it.” His laugh was bell-like and cheerful as he obliged perfectly. The member-to-member contact, between our torsos sent is both quickly over the edge for the second time. Our come mingled together, but we didn’t break our embrace. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me on top of him, and his mouth sought out further in my mouth.
“Fuck, I love you.” I surprised both of us with my words. I never expected to say them to anyone besides Marius, but here I was…saying them to Thanatos. Even scarier was the fact that I meant them.
“You love me?” His eyes brightened.
I nodded, “Yeah, I do.”
He couldn’t hide his smile, and his arms wrapped even more tightly around me, “I love you too.”
“Good, I’m glad.” I grinned, sealing our confession with a kiss.

Hades and His Lover (Pt. 10)

A note on Thanatos: I am pretty much making up a lot about his character. If you want the TRUTH on him, he has a Wikipedia page, or you can look him up on Google. I am taking a mix of my own imagination, and the actuality of the deity. Don’t get TO attached to him, as I am not sure if I will be bringing him back later (unless you like him!).

Part Ten

James looked up from where he was pressing a stack of shirts near the closet.
“I take it that your trip didn’t turn out as well as you had hoped?” The tone of his voice irked me, but I let it go. After a couple of hundred years with him acting as my manservant, he had taken a few liberties in the way he spoke to me. Marius would never have dreamed to speak to me the way that James did. And that really just made me miss him all the more.
“No, it didn’t.”
“So, is what Hermes said true? Is he sleeping with the mortal boy?”
“Yes,” I couldn’t stop the bite in my voice as I picked myself up from the ground where I had fallen. The portal had closed again now. It would take work and time to open it, and I had already wasted enough of both for the day. Arguing with Marius would have to wait for some other time.
“What happened while I was gone?” I asked, brushing the traces of dust from my clothes.
“The Fates arrived a few minutes ago, I told them that you had a matter you were taking care of. Thanatos is also here and has made himself comfortable in one of the lower chambers. He doesn’t seem very pleased, might I add.”
“Thanatos is never pleased, James.” I retorted, running my fingers through my hair. “Do I look presentable?” I wasn’t sure why I was worried about making a good impression on the Fates, or even Thanatos, but was I was.
“You look fine –a little perturbed, but you’re having a hard time. They know that.” James set down the iron and moved from behind the laundry stacks to straighten my collar. “Relax.”
“How can I relax when I am going to ask these people to kill someone? If Zeus finds out, he isn’t going to be pleased. He handpicked Jacob for Marius. There was obviously some underhanded reason for it. If I have him killed, he’s going to be furious.”
“If you don’t feel that it is right, then don’t do it, sir.” James shook his head. “I know you feel as though Marius is being taken from you, but I don’t really think that that is the case. Zeus was looking out for his best interests –and you did give him permission to move on, several months ago.”
“That’s besides the point. He told me he would rather die then go to someone else. I believed him and perhaps I was foolish to do so.”
“Pardon me for saying so, but I don’t understand why are you so hung up on him. You had many millennia together, you should be happy with that.”
“I am happy with that, James. But I don’t want our millenniums together to end. Why should they end? He confessed he still loves me, James. That’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?”
“I think this is a mistake, Hades.” James confessed, shaking his head, smoothing the sleeves of my shirt, and looking down at our feet. “You…you don’t have this kind of power over everyone. You don’t have much left to give up. How much is it going to take before you’re done?”
“As much as it takes, James. Please, don’t lecture me.”
“I don’t mean to lecture you.” James sighed, his fingers tightening around my shoulders. “But please…realize that you aren’t the only one being hurt here.”
I narrowed my eyes at him slightly, “What are you talking about?”
“When you go off on these tirades because of Marius, you aren’t the only person affected.”
“I know that.”
“It…it affects those of us under you, too.” James looked down, his hands sliding down my arms, pausing at my wrists before he pulled his hands away. “I…I know I’m not Marius, Hades. But if you need anything, there are those here that you can ask.”
I tilted my head to the side slightly, “Excuse me, James?”
“You heard me,” He nodded. “I’m not repeating myself.”
“I think you’re being a little…premature with your advances. Don’t you agree?”
“Not at all,” he shrugged. “I’m telling you what you need to know. You can have fun having Marius’s new lover murdered, but doing that isn’t going to bring Marius back here any faster. He is gone. He isn’t coming back. Not for a long time at any rate, and you can’t decide when he comes back or not. That’s Zeus’s right, as much as you hate to admit it.”
“We’ll continue this discussion later, James.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t want to keep the Fates and Thanatos waiting any longer.”
“Yes sir,” he nodded, backing away to the ironing board again.
I paused for an extra moment to watch him go back to work before I made my way out of the door.

The Fates, looking as wretched as they ever had with their single eyeball, thread, and scissors, were not amused with my plan.
“We are not going to prematurely end a mortals life just because of your jealousy,” Clothos voice was heavy and unfeeling.
“It’s preposterous,” Lachesis agreed. “Especially to rid the new world of such a pretty boy such as Jacob…” She turned their single eye on me, and I felt as though she could see into my very being. “Perhaps you would rather we did something about Marius’s life-thread instead?” She picked up a gold thread that was tied to her belt.
“What are you talking about?”
“It is not a secret here, Hades, that contrary to popular belief that we, the Fates, have nearly unlimited power… Would you like for us to take away his immortality? Turn him back into a human; turn him back into a shade?”
“No, I don’t want that. I’m happy with Marius just the way that he is.”
“No you aren’t,” Atropos shook her head. “Ever since he has become a fellow god, your life has been miserable. First having to share him with Zeus, then the apocalypse and this new earth where he is the godly voice to human kind… You never see him anymore. You hate that. You thought that it would be better if you left him, tried to start something with your new manservant, with James…but James wasn’t as openly receptive as Marius was.”
“Shut up, you know nothing.”
“We know everything,” Atropos shrugged. “We know that you have invited Thanatos here as well as us, incase we told you no. You plan on hiring him to go to earth, wooing the mortal boy and bringing him back here to you, where you will punish him eternally. We also know that you have no hope of hiding this from Marius. Marius does not love this boy, Hades, but he will fight for him. That is why we are saying no to end his life before it is time.”
“Fine,” I nodded. “Thank you for coming and hearing me out at least.”
“It’s our job to listen to your whims, Hades…Maybe another time we can come to a common ground, but right now…be happy just the way that things are. You’ll thank us for it later,” The three of them laughed in unison and then disappeared in a swirling puff of smoke just as Thanatos entered from behind.
“You wanted to see me?” Thanatos wasn’t exactly what you might expect from a God of the Dead. He differed from Fates and I in a few ways. Firstly, he resided mostly on earth and of his own accord. While the Fates ended lives on their scheduled meter, and Thanatos was almost their lackey and carried a list that continuously updated. The names oftentimes swam, switching places, and Thanatos had to keep sense of just who it was that he had to deliver back to the Underworld. Sometimes I thought that he resented me, acting as an Angel of Death for the benefit of my massive kingdom. He looked young, even though he remained centuries old. His eyes shone a bright blue, and his hair was shoulder-length, thick, slightly curled at the ends, and black in color.
“Yes, I did. Please, sit.”
The heavy coat he wore rustled, reminding me of his massive wingspan he hid, “No thanks. I’ll stand.” His hands shoved into his pockets and he stared at me. “What do you want? I have a job too, you know.”
“I know he isn’t dead yet,” I turned to pour two glasses of wine. “But I want you to pick up someone for me.”
“Oh?” Thanatos took the goblet from my hand but didn’t drink from it.
“You may have heard that Marius is residing on earth as a supreme word of the gods,” I rolled my eyes. “He has a servant boy…I want him gone.”
“So you called me?” Thanatos looked at the goblet, mulling over the idea of drinking it before he looked back up at me. “The Fates aren’t going to play your game this time, I take it? Then why should I cooperate?”
“Just because they won’t end his life, doesn’t mean that you can’t still kidnap him and bring him to me.”
“Planning on taking a page out of Zeus’s book, are you? Planning a bit of torture? Make the poor boy scream until the Fates have no other choice but to end it for him?”
“Maybe…you’ve got lots of good ideas.” I took a seat, leaning back against the wearing plush upholstery. “Perhaps you’d care to join in on the game when you bring him to me?”
“I never said I would bring him to you,” Thanatos shook his head. “If the Fates have said no, then I should say no too. The affairs of the gods aren’t my business.”
“I can reward you,” I tempted, sipping at the edge of my own goblet. “The wine isn’t poisoned or anything –you can drink it.”
“I’m not very thirsty. Tell me more about the reward.”
“What do you want?” I asked. “Money, jewels, land, recognition…”
“I don’t want any of that…why would I need any of that? I’m a fucking god.” Thanatos scoffed, setting the goblet down on the table near my chair. “I want something more.”
“A deal?”
“I’ve walked earth for millions of years. I had to gather every single fucking soul after the apocalypse. I want a few days of rest. They don’t realize it, but everything…everything that dies has to be collected. People, animals, plants…every living being.”
“I’m sorry,” I shrugged.
“Take over for me, or find someone who will. Two days, Hades, is all that I ask for.”
“Even if you did get two days off, what would you do?”
He smiled slightly, “I would sleep.”
My eyes narrowed slightly, “Is that a reference to your brother?”
“It could be, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him,” He nodded. “But I look forward simply to resting. Standing here like this is the most relax I have been in years.”
I tilted my head to the side, “I’ll do you one better…What if I told you that you never had to work again a day in your life.”
“I think I might go crazy if that were the case. I’m not complaining about my duty…I simply need to take a break from it.”
“Then do that… Run your own sanction of reapers. I’ll give you your own choice of shades, instill the necessary power in them. You can relax more often. Be with your brother.”
“All that, just for delivering a mortal to you? What has this mortal done?”
“He took Marius from me.” I spoke matter-of-factly.
“Ah,” He nodded knowingly. “Marius, of course, I should have guessed as much. How is he coping, living and breathing with the humans?”
“I don’t know, he isn’t really speaking to me.” I shrugged. “That isn’t what we’re here to discuss. Will you do this for me in exchange for a faction of reapers?”
“Sure,” Thanatos nodded, his wings rustling underneath his jacket again. “I’ll kidnap the mortal for you. When do you want him?”
“As soon as possible,” I shrugged.
“You’ll have him within the hour then.”
“I look forward to it,” I smiled, and watched him down the goblet of wine before setting it down on the table and disappearing from the room.
True to his word, not more then an hour later, Thanatos dumped a very scared looking Jacob from his bag of tricks.
“There’s a group of shades waiting for you in the next room,” I told him, looking away from Jacob for a moment. “You make take your pick from them. There are further instructions on the table as you walk into the room.”
“How many are you allowing me?” Thanatos raised an eyebrow. “He wasn’t easy to get, you know.”
“I know,” I nodded. “Would five be adequate?”
“Five would be perfect,” He nodded.
“There’s also a room for you upstairs. James will show you the way when you’re ready.” I watched him stride from the room before I turned back on Jacob, who was cowering.
“I take it you realize who I am.” I crossed my arms over my chest, looking down at him.
“Y-yes…wh-why am I here? Am I dead?”
“No, unfortunately,” I sighed, taking a seat. “The Fates wouldn’t agree to kill you, much to my own dismay.”
“Why would you want me killed?” He sounded astonished.
I raised an eyebrow, “Are you seriously asking that question? You bewitch my lover into bed with you—“
“There was no bewitching! I had almost given up hope on being Marius’s lover! He approached me!”
“Lies!” I retorted. “Why would he do that?”
“Why would you tell him that he should go to me if you didn’t want him to? And now you’re planning on punishing me for your own mistake.”
“You have a lot of cheek,” His face turned as though I had slapped him, even though he still cowered across the room. His cheek turned red and he lifted his eyes to mine.
“I don’t mean disrespect,” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yes you do.” I stood up from the chair, striding across the room to him, and lifting him up by his throat. His fingers clutched at mine as I lifted him, and I felt him gulp under my palm. “You may be able to talk to Marius like you are equals or something, but I am a supreme deity. I will not hesitate to crush your body into a million little pieces, just to see if you’ll survive it. I would love nothing more at this moment then to torture you to the death until the Fates can no longer ignore your pain and cut your life thread just to put you out of your own fucking misery.” His eyes widened slightly, and I released his throat, dropping him back on to the floor. He fell to his knees, coughing and gasping for air.
“You aren’t like this,” He shook his head. “Marius could never love you if you were really like this.”
“Marius isn’t here,” I shrugged. “Gods and change, just like people do.”
“And you’re not a person?”
“I’m better then a person,” I strode back to my chair, leaning back into it.
“Look, I didn’t mean to offend you by sleeping with Marius. I was just doing what Zeus ordered me to do.”
“And what makes you think that Zeus is qualified to give that kind of an order, Jacob?” My head tilted to the side. “Do you hear stories about Zeus and Marius falling in love? Living a life in secret together for thousands of years? No, you hear about him kidnapping him, raping him, and holding him hostage three months out of the year.”
Jacob’s face flushed red, and he looked away, “I’m sorry. I was just…I was excited. It seemed like a good opportunity.”
“Tell me…is he happy?”
“Marius?”
“Yes, of course Marius.”
Jacob shrugged, “He seems content, I guess. I don’t know if you would call him truly happy though.”
I nodded, “Do you make him happy?”
“I try to,” He shrugged again.
I stood up again, moving over to a cupboard, and withdrew a mirror from it. I turned back to him, “I’ll let you go…but if something happens to him, anything at all…I want to know about it. You can use this to communicate with me.” I pushed the mirror into his hands. “Any time, and I mean that.”
He nodded, “Okay.”
“Does Marius know that you’re gone?”
“I…I don’t know. I was alone when I was taken.”
“You may return then. Use this portal.” I brushed aside a billowing curtain where a portal was already waiting. “Don’t tell Marius you were here. Don’t tell him you spoke to me.”
“…That…that’s it? You aren’t going to punish me?”
“Like you said, I’m not that kind of person.” I pushed him through the portal and dropped the curtain back over it.
“How touching,” Thanatos had returned. “You let him go without laying a hand on him. I am almost disappointed in you, Hades. I thought you had it in you to make his life a living hell.”
“Marius likes him. I’ll let him live for now.” I shrugged. “What can I help you with Thanatos?”
“I couldn’t find your manservant, so I was wondering if perhaps the man of the house would be willing to do something as mundane as showing a guest to his room.”
“Of course,” I nodded. “I’d be happy to, Thanatos.”
He followed slightly behind me as I led him out of my meeting chamber and up the winding staircase towards the out-of-the-way room I had arranged for him.
Thanatos looked appreciatively around the room before taking a seat on the large, ornate, four-post bed.
“Classy,” He whistled.
“It is just one of the many rooms Marius and I redecorated during our…renovation years.”
“How long as it been? Since you’ve been with Marius, I mean.”
“He left about a year and a half ago.”
“But you’ve seen him since then,” Thanatos pressed on.
I smiled softly, “We made love once since then, if that’s what you’re really asking me. About three months ago.”
“And you got jealous because Marius slept, willingly, with another man, before you got the chance to move on. Is that right?”
“I never thought he would.”
“But you had plans for yourself.”
“I got lonely rather quickly. But I didn’t want to betray him. I do love him, but…I needed someone. Anyone.”
“And did you find your someone?” Thanatos slid his jacket from his shoulders, letting his huge black wings stretch out for the first time. He lay out the jacket on the foot of the bed before leaning down to untie his boots.
“I thought so. I thought it would be easy to find another lover, but it really isn’t. I loved Marius so much, for so many years…I forgot how to conduct myself.”
“It’s not hard,” Thanatos shook his head. “You just have to make your feelings clear.”
“Oh? And what do you know of love, Thanatos?”
“I know a lot more then I get credit for.”
“You know, I always got the feeling from you, that you didn’t like me.” I crossed my arms over my chest, watching him slid his boots from his feet, placing them slightly under the bed.
“I like you just fine. I don’t need world recognition or a kingdom to be happy.”
“And are you happy?”
“Most of the time, I am content.” He nodded.
“And the rest of the time?”
“The rest of the time, I wish I could be happy with someone,” Thanatos stretched, lying comfortably on the bed, looking comfortable in his jeans and t-shirt, “Even if it’s only for a little while.”
“I know what you mean.”
“So…do you want to be happy with me? Just for a little while?”
“I don’t know, Thanatos. I thought you wanted to rest.” I stepped closer to the bed, intrigued by his offer.
“Rest can wait,” His smile was sort of wicked, but inviting. “I want to fuck first. It’s been a long time since I just felt someone else’s skin on mine.”
“Okay then,” I nodded. “Lets do it.”
His smile widened, and his arms spread open. I kicked my boots off to the side of the bed before I crawled across the open space, letting him take me against his chest. His mouth felt good against mine. Better then I thought it would. He had lust hidden deep within him, and he wasn’t wasting a single unnecessary drop. His fingers dug into my hips as he pulled me over top of him, his feathers rustling softly.
“Doesn’t lying like this hurt your wings?” I asked. My fingers traced over the top curve of his left one, the soft feathers feeling soft under my touch.
“They’re more durable then they look. You could yank them pretty hard before it would really bother me.”
“They’re beautiful. They suit you.”
“Enough talk,” He whispered, his lips brushing mine as he spoke. “I think it’s time we lost more of this clothes, hmm?”
“How does this come off?” I tugged at his t-shirt, finding it unfathomable that he had ever gotten it on over his enormous wingspan in the first place.
“It doesn’t. Leave it.” He breathed, his hands between us unbuttoning my shirt and pushing it back over my shoulders.
“Why?” I asked.
“Just leave it,” He insisted, not answering the question.
“What if I just tore it off? Would you get angry?” I asked.
“No, but I probably wouldn’t want to sleep with you anymore.”
“What are you hiding, Thanatos?”
“Maybe if you’re a good boy, Hades, I’ll share a few of my secrets with you when we’ve finished. For now, the shirt stays on.” He chided, his lips touching the bare flesh of my shoulder.
“Why?” I pushed. “Have you got horrible scars under there? Are you missing chunks of flesh? Are you simply blindingly pale?”
“Yes, all of that.” He teased. His mouth was warm against mine as my fingers brushed under the hem of his tight shirt. “A couple of million years, dragging the dead kicking and screaming back to their makers tends to piss off a lot of mortals.”
My fingertips brushed a piece of charred-feeling skin. It felt hard and rough against my smooth touch.
“Why didn’t it heal?” I asked, intrigued to see just what it was he was hiding behind his façade.
He sighed, rolling over on top of me and kissing me roughly for a moment before he leaned back. “Why are you so interested in my flaws?”
“Because I’ve never been with anyone who had them –physical flaws, I mean.”
“Ahh, opening up a new fetish then are you? Sick of sleeping with all of the perfectly shaped fools out there; you’ve got to go for the ones with the disfigurements.”
“I didn’t even know about it until just now,” I shrugged.
“Do you really want to see?” He asked. “I’ve never shown anyone before. Not really anyway. There was a mortal girl once, thought I had fallen in love with her, but…it didn’t work out after she found out what I was.”
“Falling for mortals is stupid anyway,” I shrugged. “They aren’t able to fully comprehend the subtleties of being an immortal entity.”
Thanatos took a deep breath before his hands pulled mine away from his chest, “Stop touching it,” He insisted. “Please?” He pushed my hands above my head before leaning down to press his lips against mine again. “This is getting to be to…sentimental. I just wanted a quick fuck, Hades. I don’t want any kind of attachments, okay?”
I nodded, “My apologies.”
He was quiet again, looking down at his hands as they undid the fastening on the front of my trousers. He took a few moments, brushing his hand over my member, still hidden beneath the layer of clothing.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I suppose I should tell you…I haven’t been with very many men,” He looked back up at me.
“It’s like riding a horse,” I teased. “You never forget.” I nudged his knees apart to lift my hips, pushing the last of my clothes off myself. He bit his lip in what I took to be an appreciative manner.
“Have you ever even ridden a horse?” He averted his eyes towards my face. His hands however had a mind of their own, stroking the length of my already semi-erect member.
“No, but I’ve heard stories.” I mused, my hands going to unbutton his jeans now. He groaned as I pulled him free from his encasing, and nearly lost his balance as I pushed them to his knees. He fell onto his side, pushing them off the rest of the way to join the remnants of our clothes.
“Okay,” I pulled him, feeling my shaft pressing into his thigh, and his into mine. “Now the only thing between us is your pride,” I tugged at his t-shirt. “Is it really so bad? Or are you just nervous about what I’ll think of you?”
He looked down at his shirt, pulling it up slightly from his hip, “I don’t know…how do you feel about burn marks left over from the apocalypse?” He raised it just high enough to show off a patch of dark, bubbly looking almost, skin. “Do you really want to feel this against you?”
My fingertips traced the edge of the burn, but I still looked up at his face, “How come they’re only on your chest?”
“They aren’t –they weren’t. They’re healing, but slowly. I was caught in a pretty big explosion near the beginning. There was a couple of years when I was nearly all bone, and muscle tissue. My skin took awhile to come back.”
“Ah,” I nodded. It had been nearly four years since the apocalypse had ended, and almost six since it had begun. It had taken Thanatos that long to get all of the souls, and Charon to deliver them all to the gates. While that was going on, the rest of the gods were making plans for the Earth II, trying to pinpoint when exactly humanity went wrong –when they stopped believing in us.
“If it makes you feel better, Thanatos,” I pushed his t-shirt back down over the burn. “You can leave it, I won’t pressure you about it.”
His lips caught mine again, and his arm wrapped around me, pushing me onto my back again, stroking our members together. I groaned against his lips, savoring that feeling of being flesh-to-flesh.
“So, how do you want to do this?” He leaned on an elbow, his breath still warm against my lips. His bright, black eyes stared down into mine. “Would you actually tolerate me fucking you? Or would you prefer it the other way around?”
“There are other ways to fuck that don’t involve anyone’s asses getting reamed, Thanatos. I thought you, of anyone, what with your extensive travels, would realize that.”
“I know there are other ways, Hades,” He chided. “That way is simply the most recreational.”
“What do you want to do?” I asked, tracing his lips with my fingertips. “You’re the one who started all of this.”
He hummed softly, his eyes half-closing as he parted his lips to dip his tongue between my fingers. His own hands pressed down against my shoulders as he turned me over onto my back again. “Fuck me –just like this. Then let me return the favor.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” His hands were removed from my shoulders, and replaced upon our members, caressing them roughly together. A few moments later, his mouth had engulfed me. I sat up right, surprised by the sudden attack. A placed a palm on the back of his head, gently at first, then pushed his skilled and fevering mouth deeper over me.
His mouth returned to mine, his breath warming my lips again. His tongue shared the droplets of come that had been brought forth with mine, and his hands pushed down between us, positioning himself over me before plunging slowly backwards. I was inside him within moments. His mouth felt greedy and his teeth nipped at my lips, coaxing them apart to introduce his tongue back into play.
“Your hands…” He urged, taking them the bed where I was holding myself steady as he moved himself over me. “They need to be on me.” He wrapped one of my arms around his waist, and brought the other to his member. He pushed me back, his wings spreading around us to create a dark little cocoon of lust.
I grunted softly, my arms going around his shoulders as he drove me mad. He was keeping my thrusts short and direct, not relinquishing any kind of control. He grunted as we crushed his left wing for a moment, as I forced him onto his back. My arms went under his knees, pulling them up to push into him harder and faster then he had been letting me.
“That hurt,” He didn’t sound like he was in much pain, but was still annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I pulled his legs around my waist to lean forward. My palm brushed the mop of dampening hair from his forehead and I pressed a fresh kiss to his lips. “You were going too slowly. I had to do something.” My fingers brushed his feathers, before going to his hips, lifting him up a little higher. He moaned loudly, his arms wrapping around my shoulders, pulling me down to him and catching our lips together. My mouth opened involuntary in gasp, as I began to empty myself into him. Our moans exchanged in each others throats, and he continued to harden between our abdomens. His excitement at being pressed between our bodies while I drove into him, was evident.
I hadn’t even quite finished spilling my seed before he had me trapped under him on my stomach, my lower-half brought to him, and filled to maximum with his tool. One arm wrapped tightly around my waist, holding me in place while he moved methodically in and out. His other hand was on my member, coaxing out the last of my orgasm.
It didn’t take long before he was groaning against the back of my neck, his hands slipping to my thighs, pushing them further apart. He was bucking irregularly into me, and his teeth bit into my shoulder. I felt the first jet escape him and moaned along with him as he emptied into me. When he had finished, he rested his cheek against my back, still thrusting softly in the ricochet of momentum. He breathed heavily as he rolled away, his wings brushing my sides. He reached over, skimming his hands over my backside, coating his fingers with his own come.
“Do you want to taste?” He offered his fingers me. I paused for a moment before licking his fingers, sucking the tips for a moment, then lapping hungrily at his palm. He smirked, getting aroused again of the image I made while I cleaned off his hand. He reached down between his own legs where my own ejaculation was still warm and damp. He licked a sample from his fingers before stretching his arms above his head with a contented sigh.
“You’re content now?” I confirmed, watching him close his eyes.
He smiled before nodding, “You’re a good lover, Hades.”
I laughed, “Thank you, I think.”
He opened his eyes slightly, turning his head to look at me, “You’re welcome to stay. We could do it again.”
I picked myself up from the bed, leaning over him for a moment. His face was stained with worry, wondering if he had gone to far. My mouth twitched in a shirt smile, and I pressed a small kiss to his lips, “Maybe. For now, you should rest. You’ve worked hard. You deserve to just sleep for a bit.”
He watched me move from the bed, picking up my clothes from around the bed and pulling them back on.
“Hades?” He called me back, as I began to close the door behind me.
“Yes, Thanatos?” I asked, turning back.
“When you’re ready again, I’ll be right here.”
“I know.”