Petals, like stained glass, delicate

By Zenia

He dreamt black dreams edged in crimson.

It began in a dark room where darker desires were met. Calloused hands skirted over his thighs and belly, flushing his body with guilty desire. He fought, as he always fought, but words whispered in his ear, promising him pain, spoke the words: disappointment, nothing, hate. No one knew, would ever know, how he learned to tolerate it. Learned to dream them away. Enchantment started with the words, “not me.” As he lay in bed afterward, curled around his pillow-not me, never me, not me. Instead of running he tried following in his footsteps, never succeeding.

He understood desire; silent nights, brutal thrusts, and never tell, secret.

Father taught him need

--shifting to

Angel.

Hands like irons about his wrists as lips, tongue, and teeth forced out shuddering moans. He fought against him, wanting to say no but not having the words.

“Yes,” he hissed, thrusting up against Angel’s body. Then nothing as his mouth was forced, choking as pleasure was mete out in long, slow strokes. Death, so sure, so close, before ending in withdrawal.

Angel’s hands stroked his face and lips, softly kissing as a lover would. As his father never did. Not me. Kisses, tender against his stomach and thighs, exposing him as slick fingers entered. Stretching, teasing, opening the fire of the body. He couldn’t, didn’t—

Secret

love, how could he love without the previous brutality. Then he felt the fingers slide out of him and he cried out in bereavement.

“Nothing,” he groaned. I am, without you, nothing. But how to say it and make him understand?

Angel hushed him with another kiss and entered him, gently. He whimpered, trying to make him understand what he needed. He needed…to be needed. It was too good, the razor edge of pleasure, without pain to counteract it and make it bearable. Pain was light and pleasure could kill the soul if you let it.

And he could not let it happen, the slow climb of his body, this close to orgasm. Too close to being not me. Please—

The word stuck in his throat as he abruptly came back into reality. His body, tangled in sweat soaked sheets, trembled from still remembered pleasure. He grimaced in disgust at his pajama bottoms, stuck against his skin with semen, and climbed out of bed to shower.

Tired and still slightly aroused, he refused to meet his own eyes in the mirror. He knew what he would see there if he did, the boy, now a man, who still believed in a father’s love and the divinity of pain.