Prologue

“I don’t want to end it like this. I don’t think there is any other way.” He leaned into you for a goodbye kiss. You turned away. Eyes down. Half smiling you chuckled at his effort to soothe you. Tears welling in the corners of your eyes, you leaned back so they could beam fully into his face. That silly f*****g grin on his lips same as always and still comforting. His eyes sank into yours then down to your feet. You blinked, tears rolling down your face. You shook your head laughing off the sobs filling your chest. You kissed him on the lips, filled it with sweetness. He wrapped his arms around your waist. You stood firm and accepting this time. He nuzzled his face against the black dots freckling under your eyelids. You could feel the tiny puddles of ink blotted below your lower lids. You wept harder, streams ran on your cheeks and dripped onto his shirt, your head on his shoulder, chin digging into the space between collarbone and back, your arms gripped hard around his torso. “Don’t cry. It’s bad luck.”

“For who?” You squeezed harder, “Please, you’ll never see me again.” Muddied rivers poured down your face as you forced eye contact. Your chest pressed into his, heartbeat pounding frantic for a way to make him stay.

“Stop it, you know that’s not true,” he broke the gaze leaning back and dropping his hands. “ I can’t win with you, can I?” He sat down, his feet dangling off of the platform.

“I just don’t understand why you’re doing this, I mean we have a good thing going don’t we? You just want to kill it? Tell me, what did I do?” You kicked him in the back hard enough to hurt, “I told you I didn’t care about---”

“You didn’t do anything, I told you, when I wasn’t having fun anymore, I’d let you know.”

“So this is how you f*****g let me know?” You slapped the back of his head and took a seat next to him. You were less resolved than at first, the first stage of grief coming to an end. ”It’s not like it’s been a f*****g treat you know. I knew you wouldn’t be there, I don’t know what the f**k I was thinking when I told you I’d leave Dixie Lox for you.”

“You don’t even know Dixie Lox,” he laughed breaking the stone on his face into something you could read, reducing you back down into the crying girl. You took the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, then fondled through his pants pockets for the lighter.

“Found it,” you squeezed his dick hard. You let go and pulled out the lighter, sparking the flame to light the paper between your lips, you offered him one.

“I don’t have to tell you they’ll f*****g kill you,” he took the pack from you lighting his own, then put it in your front pocket, lying back onto the concrete. He tugged your ear. You fell back, your head on his chest staring up into the night sky not remembering the last time you did this. “I wasn’t lying. I want you to know that. When I told you I loved you, I mean, I’m unhinged according to Doctor Feel Good, but what the f**k does he know. I know I love you. I never wanted to work for anyone like I would for you.” He fingered your hair, smoke rings haloing into the night, “And I’d do anything for you, whatever you say, okie dokie. I can’t do this for you though, you’ve gotta go it alone from now on.”

“You really are a dick head, you know? I mean, I fucked you once, then I fucked you again, and again,” you had flashbacks, your hand smashing a hole in his bedroom wall, laughing, collapsing in sweaty heaps, that’s when you fell in love.

He laughed, “I would have had a kid with you on accident.”

“Not on purpose? What did you think? ‘Girl just loves her cream pies’.”

“Something like that,” his voice was like honey bleeding from the hive.

“God, don’t joke about that,” you bit your lip. “You want to know a secret?”

“You aborted my love child, I knew it, you dirty b***h.” Both of you laughing, you kissed him on the mouth catching him off guard.

Moths flickered around the glow of the station light. You rolled over onto his chest, legs mounted over his, your tongue deep in his mouth. Breathing becoming heavier and heartbeats quickening, he lifted your shirt above your head, no bra on underneath and n*****s standing as tiny mind erasers. They plumped under his touch, the blood flow reddening your skin; he sat up to meet you face to face. Your thighs perched perfectly over his waist, something told you a skirt was a good idea tonight. One hand on your breast, he worked his tongue around the crest while you worked his zipper open and popped the top button of his pants, pulling your panties to the side and slipping him inside of you, rocking back slowly moving your hips deep onto his. “F**k me baby. You make love like a hero.” The buttons on his shirt popped open easily, one hand behind his head and you bounced up and down, both of you watching the penetration, your eyes catching each other’s while he held a handful of your hair moving your face into his. Your head slipping out of his grip to one side of his face, you let out little whimpers when he pushed inside, turning into full thrusts. You cursed louder till screams and the name of god spilled out. Your muscles clenched around him, “Don’t stop.” You bit down into his lip and pulled his ears. As you kissed, hands gripped the sides of his face. He ran fingers down your back pressing tight to your sides holding steady. “You can’t,” hot rush streaming out of you, knees collapsing and seizing around him. You sat panting, make up smeared and dripping. He held you with one arm against the small of your back. Chest to chest and counting your beats per minute down to resting rate, he stayed frozen like a soldier. You flexed, wiped the sweat from your forehead on his brow giving him a little nibble on the cheek.

“I love it when you do that, it takes all the work out of it for me.” You slapped him, the echo bouncing through the empty station. You rocked forward into him, flexing again, knocking him over, your hand planted firmly on his sternum, you ground him into the station’s earth to the tunes of his heavy breaths and moans. You pinned one of his hands down, leaving the other free to feel the heat of your skin radiating in the night. As he came you clenched hardest, squeezing the life from him.

“I love you,” he looked up into your eyes, his black glassy orbs welling your tears, his own in the dark lines covering his face.
***

With shirt hanging from your hand he wrapped his jacket over your shoulders. You stuffed your wallet into his pants pocket. Bernal Flats 25th Hour Express, the train floated over the tracks at a devil’s pace, snaking its way from coast to coast, refueling at MAG ZERO once per round trip. Backing for the new rail system boomed the expansion of the Flats. It was the greatest thing to happen on the continent since manifest destiny. Formally, this berg in the salt flats was home to a fringe sector of society, agrarians, engineers, and hermits. Within thirty years, hemisphere tying project wrapped its arms across the country with BF at the center of the tracks. You could cross from pole to pole in the west and never reach the ocean. The displaced earth from the construction of such a massive system was put to use in the republics of the southern hemisphere. A land bridge was constructed breaking the barrier between continents and the icy shelf of Antarctica. The hub, MAG ZERO sat in Centerville, a sprawling complex of rails that would take you anywhere pumping life blood into the veins of the nation.

“I’m going to miss you, Barty.” He kissed you on the lips. “You should protect yourself. I buried some guns in Harlord's, that should keep you safe for a while, you were always my favorite.” He jumped from the platform into the oncoming lights. No pulp. A blinding flash made you shade your eyes. You turned to watch it happen, the moment in slow motion. Lightening arching from the tracks, he was untouched in the magnetic field, suspended in air as his body was torn apart. A blackened mass grew. Streaking bolts of lightening swarmed over his chest consuming the rapidly fragmenting structure of the male figure. The event reached up towards his face, your eyes met in these last moments, and in an instant the mass of onyx colored energy collapsed in on itself taking its prize into the unknown. Wind from the passing locomotive blew your hair into the air leaving it swept up against the night sky. The train moved onward. No screeching breaks or twitch denoting a deceleration from its contact with his body, just lights in a blur moving out of sight towards the main station of the Flats.

You walked home, your bike abandoned at the station side by side with his. Into your room, you locked the door and undressed. You picked up earrings on the floor making your way to the bathroom mirror. You washed the night from your skin, your dog circling your feet, you rubbed his fuzzy head and smiled. Bathwater steamed as you sat on the edge of the tub. You wore every piece of jewelry he’d given you, chains rattled around your neck, the holes in your ears filled. The rings on your fingers clinked against the edge of the raised tub as you stepped over into the hot water. Both feet in, you kept your knees up and slipped under.