2-Awake

Jon, awake, drags Mallory back into it. This is a male/male relationship, as is important to the historical event. If this offends you, I do not apologize.

He wasn't sure why but he was leaving the shop with a shrink-wrapped deck of cards and finding his way to his ex's doorstep. 

"Write me a story."

Mallory stared back at him with kohl-colored eyes.  Contact lenses.  He must have been making good money this time around.  It was a tenser silence than when he walked in on him with that other man.  Neither could remember right which he was who. 

While he was trying to see if the other man still had blonde roots or if they'd grown out he started shrinking back from view and closing the door.  But Jon caught it before it could close on his delicate fingers, and he looked up at him and used that little french accent that acting school had taught him brought shivers to his old lover's spine.  Maybe it was familiar.

"Mallor'.  Please write me a sto-ree.  I'll beg?"

It wasn't the eyes that Jon made at him that did it -- not the sensual half-lidded look he learned not to fall for awhile ago.  It wasn't the way he leaned in, gave that malleable helpless air, that I'm-in-control-because-I-lost-control.  Under that was a piece of him that he didn't want him seen, a sliver of 'please, Mallory...' instead of 'oh, please, Mallory!' that ached instead of...ached.  A genuine panic, the writer liked to think, a genuine fatigue, a genuine helplessness, and he wasn't sure how long it was they stood there with him watching Jon act like a common hooker to get what he wanted, new to him and nothing new to him and all the same...

It was the eyes, what was under the eyes, that made him open the door, and somehow he imagined Jon didn't even know that it was there.

He explained the dream over some kind of european tea he'd always thought tasted a little like a strong floral perfume.  Mallory's first question --

"Are you doing drugs?"

"No!  No, I only tried them that once and I'm not doing anything.  I just had it.  I had it, and it has to be a sign.  And..."

He set the cards on the table and pushed them toward Mallory, but he didn't want anything to do with them.

"For the story."

"It's ridiculous."

"It means something, I know it.  The cards, the dream, him -- "

"He's not there and you can't drag him out of this box."  He picked it up, held it up into the light like he was appraising a diamond, turning it over, the plastic wrapping flickering the same.  "I can't drag a story out of this box and a crackdream."

A long pause.  A longer one as the not-blonde, Jon noticed the bleach receding into darker roots he always thought were sexier, took a sip of perfume tea and turned the box over in his hand again, running his thumb over the wrinkles in the plastic.  Honey if you'd just grow it out again he wanted to tell him he'd be on him in a heartbeat faking that accent for him.  Silence counted out the pattern.  Another sip, another turn, another stroke.  Wait.  Again.  Sip, turn, stroke.  Wait.  John was measuring out the time, meting it out in measures, constructing choreography until the other man spoke and all he saw for a moment was his lips move and he didn't hear it but it was attractive on him, the way he moved his lips.  And maybe, he wondered if it was a french thing but maybe he could swear he wasn't saying anything constructive.

" -- but it has to be on my time.  I mean, I have deadlines of my own, there are things happening in the world more important than your fairy tales."

He was going to say more than that even if it would all be the same thing but lips were on his and he had to push Jon back into his seat.

Author's Note

Should have said this on the last one: these chapters are incredibly short. The 'book' as a whole will be either a short novella or a very long short story. Also, a lot is left to inference, but this is because it's part of a longer piece and the exposition occurs over time.

Reviews

[Samantha Ashley*]

I like it good job!