Chapter 3

Without a word, I returned to the living room, wearily falling into the couch. I closed my eyes, the darkness holding a temporary oasis. I wanted an escape. The demons had calmed, but the sins returned with a vengeance. I could feel the lust consuming my body, picking at the insecurities that I had hid long ago.

 

Unwanted images of yearning raced through my abused mind. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to no longer want. I had not asked for such an attraction, I had never asked for love. I had never asked for my icing heart, how cold and chilling it was to be at war with my own lusting body. Oh, the fires that boiled inside of me could not touch my heart.

 

A body, a hard body, a hot body hovered over me and my eyes snapped open at the contact. A body consisting of hard muscles, of hot blood hung centimeters from my own. A warm whisper, “I knew you were gay.” I was not even given time to panic, to go into a shock that would allow me to doubt reality. No, his lips consumed mine without a second thought and his tongue seared mine while his teeth left their own invisible marks. His kiss left me with a scorching expression and a growing lust. Yet, it was then that I had confirmed my own assumption. David was the Devil, he was the ultimate demon.

 

“David,” I growled, my voice no longer my own. My thoughts were no longer my own. I wanted to blame him, to transfer my own sins and wanting.

 

“You kissed back.”

 

I-I could not deny that and he continued in his torture as I sat uselessly listening to him. I felt as the pain blistered the ice of my remaining on my soul. Scarred from the extreme heat, I didn’t want to listen but I couldn’t fight back. I wanted to run, run away from this demon.

 

“He always talks about you and I just knew that you had to be gay. I guess I was right but you’re in love with him too, aren’t you?”

 

Asher was in the other room yelling at his parents. He couldn’t hear us. I only wished I could have the same privilege. I only wished that David had never entered his life, my life. David’s words hit too close to the truth, I was caught in a hesitance that I couldn’t escape.

 

Before I could answer, before I could speak, David engulfed me into another mind numbing kiss. His hands massaged my skin and I couldn’t help but to cling to him. I wanted to push him away. I wanted to remind myself that I was in love with Asher. I was already a sinner and I couldn’t. He smelled like the sour berries of the summer and I craved that scent. No, I craved this physically mess of a kiss. I craved the attention; my suppressed gates had finally come undone and there was no remedy, no answer. He tasted like the sweet ripe berries of the same summer; the bitter and sweet contradicting one another. His kisses were simply tart.

 

“What the f**k are you doing?” I hadn’t heard Asher entering the room; I hadn’t been able to hear anything really. David had deleted the rest of the world; his kiss isolated you to the moment. It was horridly exhilarating. Asher’s voice had dripped with venom yet it held a tint of fragility. His face was contorted in an expression of pain and hurt but there was that edge of anger that rounded his profile.

 

“Asher, I-I,” the words I wanted to say, wanted him to believe were trapped inside of me. My vocal chords caged the apologies I meant to say. I wanted to tell him the truth, of my love for him that seemed to be drifting away with this demon who was threatening everything. I chastised myself for this developing infatuation; it seemed an even bigger sin than loving Asher, my cousin. I scowled my heart, warning it that this was only because of the kiss, my first kiss. It was only the attention, only the body.

 

“Leave,” his voice broken and I only wanted to comfort him. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even comfort myself, the demons in me turning and their absence disappeared. They resurfaced and claimed my body as their own. We marched outside where my demons kept my heart warm as the snow settled around us. David remained inside the house and I felt my demons snickering at this. Their snide comments were something that I could only beg to halt. Slowly, I walked home with my thoughts weighing my body down.

 

My thoughts were warring with one another, my demons choosing vicious sides. Half of me, my body, wanted David. They were filled with the images, both in imagination and reality, of his harsh kisses. They wanted the lust, the sins that would follow his actions.

 

Yet the other half, my mind, craved Asher’s love. It reminded me that of the love that I had sought for ever so long. Those demons could only remember the pleasant, gently memories we had shared. The harsh and gentle, the sweet and bitter, my heart was comprised of two cruel elements that mingled with one another. Both loves melded and I could only say that my heart was left tart on the day Asher had told me his secret.