As Yet Untitled - Part I

[Cloric the Cleric]

A short note about the following story:

This is not fantasy. This is not light, sweet, and airy. This is NOT rated G, although I wouldn't go so far as X, NC-17, or even R... perhaps a heavy PG-13... This is not, particularly, a happy story, although the last scene, already mostly staged in my head, does contain a light of hope.

This is rough. This is life, for some people.

This is not finished. I'm working on part II, as hard as I can push myself. I prefer writing happy things, but this story screamed to be told.

With that said:

[Cloric the Cleric]

TODAY

Deep breath, hold it for 10 seconds, release. Again. Again.
"There, that's better"
Hands a little steadier now, he finishes wrapping his upper arm with his belt, taking the leather in his teeth to keep it tight. He squeezes the rubber ball in his right hand once, twice, three times. He doesn't remember where he got it, not anymore, but that's not important right now. All that matters is that his makeshift tourniquet and the rubber ball combine to make the network of veins and arteries in his forearm stand out in stark relief to his skin. They are startling in their clarity, and he idly wonders when he ate last, but only for the space of a second. Maybe two. Thinking too much might make him start shaking again.
Still breathing deeply, he holds the syringe up to his eyes. "Got to make this one count" he says to himself, and places the needle carefully on top of what seems to him to be the best prospect, just above a small red mark from a previous injection site. In truth, one more won't matter. His arm is a mass of bruises and bumps.
Once more he holds his breath as he applies increasing amounts of pressure, and hisses involuntarily as the needle, dull from who knows how many uses, finally breaks the skin.
When he's fairly certain he's in the right spot, he draws back on the plunger and is rewarded with a thin stream of red mixing in with the slightly cloudy liquid already present in the instrument. Slowly, carefully, he pushes the plunger back down, vigilantly concentrating on making sure he doesn't feel the burning that would tell him the needle slipped out, or pushed through to the other side.
Halfway done, he can feel the drug coursing through his system, and he knows that if he doesn't speed things up a bit, he'll screw it up, so he presses harder. At the very end, with 10cc's or so to go, his hand shakes again, and the burn rears its ugly head, but it doesn't matter much, or at all, by that point. He already feels the crawl of the drug up his neck, and can taste the bitter - but oh so sweet - taste in his mouth. He pulls the needle out, drops the belt from his teeth and tears it off his arm. Only seconds now.
He tries to cap the sryinge, but after jabbing himself in the fingers twice gives up and reaches to set it down as far from him as his trembling fingers can put it. It falls to the floor, but his awareness doesn't stretch that far anymore. His vision has narrowed to a field right in front of him, and his fingers are aware of only two things: the remote control to turn the tv on to the porn movie he likes so much and the waistband of his sweats, who's last wash is only a distant memory.

FOUR MONTHS AGO

Yo! Pick up the phone! Hello? I'm ringin, here! Sighing deeply, David grabs his cell phone from his jacket pocket, glances at the caller ID screen, and hits the answer key. "Hey."
"Hi there! Whatcha doin?"
"Hey Mark. Honestly, I'm playing catch up. Spent all day yesterday at the hospital with my fucking ex boyfriend's new boyfriend - you know how much I LOVED that, I'm sure - and fell asleep after the meeting last night. So I'm still living in what looks like a third world food and clothing pantry. I've got to go to the northside today to pick up the last of my things from my old place and get at least a few of these boxes unpacked before five. What's up with you?"
"Actually, not much. Got groceries last night. Mom's passed out on the couch, until its time for bingo at two. Want some help with your stuff?"
David glances around his apartment, boxes stacked on top of boxes on top of furniture, and sees the cat staring at him from the empty food bowl. "Shit. Where did her food end up?"
"What?"
"Callisto. I think she'll start planning on killing me in my sleep if i don't find her food. Thanks for the offer, but in the state this place is in, I don't even know where to start, let alone telling someone else what goes where."
"Alright, that's cool. But the offer's open if ya want. We still on for the meeting tonight?"
"Yeah. Hey, any chance you can find a ride to my place, and we'll go from here. Any extra time I can get to unpack..."
"Um... yeah. Mom should be back from bingo by four-thirty or so."
Breathing a relieved sigh, David leans back against the wall. "Awesome. See ya then, man."
"Don't stress too much, man. Remember, one day at a time." Mark reminds him, letting his concern show in his voice. "You can handle it. And if you can't, I'm just a phone call away."
"Thanks, man." David smiles, "You have no idea how much I appreciate it."
"I might. I've been where you are, remember?"
"Yeah, I know. Hey, see ya this afternoon, okay?"
"Right on. Later."
Pressing the END key, David slips the phone back into his jacket pocket, and weaves his way into the kitchen, hoping he'll find the bag of cat food in there. From there he goes to the hall closet, then the bedroom, then the office, bathroom and back to the living room.
"Well, fuck." He turns around to search the kitchen again, and nearly trips over Callisto, who meows up at him. "Sorry baby girl, I'm looking. You can't have been out of food more than four hours, though. I know when we got here last night I put the bowl down with what was in it when I picked ya up."
She looks up at him with eyes that plainly show her lack of care for his version of events, and demands, again, that her human bow to her wishes. "Mrrooow."
"Alright, alright. I'll just run to the store and get another bag. One more thing on a growing list." David grabs his keys and a pack of smokes, and leaves, almost forgetting to lock the door.

TODAY

Flinging the empty baggy halfway across the room, he holds his head in his hands. He's out of beer, out of smokes, and out of dope. Worse, he's out of money. He needs a fix, and he needs it bad. The dope keeps the memories back, and keeps him awake so that he can't dream.
He picks up the phone and fumbles a number from his wallet. The line rings twice, then:
"John's johns, this is Patrick."
"Umm... Hello. I don't know if you remember me, but we met a few nights ago. Tall, strawberry blond..."
"Lots of freckles, right?"
"Yeah."
"Sure I remember you. Don't tell me a hot guy like you needs an escort service." the voice on the other end sounds playful, flirtatous.
"Actually..." he pauses, then rushes on "I was kinda wondering... that is... I'm a little short on cash..."
"We don't do freebies, hon." Patrick's voice grows cold "Cash, Visa, EmmCee or Am Ex."
Suddenly afraid that if Patrick hangs up, he'll lose his nerve, he stammers "N-no... what I mean is... um... how do I... ya know... shit..."
"Are you looking for work?"
Deep breath. "Yes."
"Have you ever escorted before?" Now neither flirtatous or cold, Patrick speaks in the tones of pure business.
"No."
"Alright. There's an address on that card. Can you find it? You said you were from out of town."
"I'll find it. When?" He feels a bit more under control now, a plan in place, more drugs in his future.
"Get here as soon as you can. Redheads are always popular. Oh, and if your arms don't look any better than the other night, wear a long sleeve shirt." Click.
He hangs up the phone, drops his head back into his hands, and starts to cry, silently.

FOUR MONTHS AGO

Mark hangs up the phone, frowning. David sounded stressed out. Breaking point stressed out. Relapse stressed out. He reaches to pick it up again, and stops.
"Got to let him have a little room. If he still sounds like that tonight, I'll talk to him."
Getting up, he leaves the combination laundry/computer room and walks into the living room. He's not concerned about waking his mother. She was up drinking until four in the morning. There's still a glass of vodka and grapefruit juice on the coffee table, warm now, the sweat ring dry. He picks it up, supressing the sudden and almost violent urge to swallow the entire thing, carries it to the kitchen sink and pours it out.
His mother would be pissed about this, but there's a good - better than good, really - chance that she won't even remember she had an almost full screwdriver within arms reach when the booze finally wore off.
Going upstairs, he grabs a towel from the hall closet and steps into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. While he waits for the water to warm up, he undresses, examining himself in the full mirror.
"Not bad, considering." Compared to the figure he saw in that mirror 6 months ago, this is an understatement. "I need to start working out. Putting some weight back on is one thing, but I refuse to let this little pooch turn into a pot belly."
Stepping into the shower, his thoughts return to David.
What was it about that guy? For some reason he's all I think about these days. I mean, yeah, he's good looking, but I am so not looking to get involved. Not that it would be at all appropriate. Besides, he's too old for me. Or I'm too young for him. 10 years is a long time.
Age difference aside, Mark can't help but notice the way David smiles when they see each other, and he's bright enough to recognize his own reactions to that smile. "Its almost like getting high." he says aloud, and gets shampoo in his mouth as a reward.
He finishes rinsing off, steps out and dries himself. In his room, he sees the caller ID box flashing a new call. It was David.
"Damn, missed it by 5 minutes." Mark tries to call him back, but the call goes to voicemail after a few rings.
"Hey! Sorry, I was in the shower. Call me. Later."
He decides that hanging around the house all day, listening to his mother wheeze and snore on the couch isn't really appealing, and grabs a sweater and jeans. Jotting a quick note, "Going for a walk, maybe the mall. Need ride at 5, please. Thanks and love ya, M." he grabs his keys and a pack of smokes and walks out the door.

[Cloric the Cleric]

TODAY

He closes the motel room door behind him and drops his keys on the table. God, what a nightmare. He almost hadn't been able to go through with it -
"Would that have been so bad?" an eerily familiar voice whispers from inside his mind
- and then where would he be? Still broke, out of dope, smokes and beer. And thinking. And feeling. Feeling guilty.
"It wasn't your fault." the voice whispers
"YES it WAS." he screams back and abandons the idea of a shower first. He mixes himself up a shot and places a cold beer by the bed, performs the ritual that many addicts know by heart, and the voice is quiet again. For now.

THREE MONTHS AGO

David lets himself in his apartment, a little dazed.
"My God, " he breathes, "am I crazy?"
The night started out normal enough. He picked up Mark at his mother's house at 5 and they drove to the meeting, chatting amiably about their days. He talked about work and his boss. Mark talked about his new job and his mother.
David still didn't quite understand how Mark handled living with his mother, drinking as much as she does. His brother offered him a place to stay when he made the decision to get clean and sober, and seemed offended when David turned him down, even after explaining that he didn't trust himself just yet to stay off the booze that his brother and his wife enjoyed, most of the time to excess, almost every night.
But then, as they sat in the meeting, Mark was sharing some of his struggles with the group. He started to choke up, and David just reached out to put an ecouraging arm around him. After Mark finished, and seemed to have a better hold on his emotions, David started to pull his arm back, but was stopped by the look in Mark's eyes as he turned and looked at him. David left it where it was, and a few minutes later, felt his friend leaning against him, settling more firmly under his arm, and up against his chest. They sat like that through the rest of the meeting, not moving except when Mark reached out his hand to take hold of David's. It just felt...
"Nice... nice and... right."
They didn't talk about it on the ride home. Didn't talk at all, actually. But they hadn't stopped holding hands, either. When they got to Mark's house, David pulled up out front, put it in park, and turned to Mark, opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and sighed. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Small voice, distant look.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that." David thought about what he wanted to say. What his heart almost screamed at him to say. And decided that now, tonight, wasn't the time. "Pick you up at the same time tomorrow?"
Mark turned his head to look at him, smiled and said, in an almost light and relieved tone, "Of course."
"Good." He leaned over to give him the customary hug, and felt a light brush of Mark's lips on his cheek. He wsan't truly suprised to feel a rush of pleasure at the touch.
Mark pulled back, smiled, and opened the door to step out. "Sleep well. Don't forget-"
"To pray. I won't. I've got some new things to think about, I think. Sleep well, yourself."
"I will. Goodnight."
"'Night." Mark closed the door, walked up to his house, opened the screen, and turned to wave.
David waved back, and waited until he saw the front door to the house open before putting the car in gear and pulling away.
Now, still leaning against his door, the memory of tonight playing over and over again, not even in any orderly fashion, flashing from the drive home, back to the meeting, to outside Mark's to picking him up, back and forth and back and forth, David tries to keep his breathing steady. Finally, he surrenders to his overwhelming need, and drops to his knees.
Clasping his hands before him, he prays.
He doesn't pray for any particular thing. He's not even sure that he forms any recognizable words in his mind. He only knows that he's terrified. For himself, for Mark.
Addicts and alcoholics can have normal relationships, sure. But he's been told, one of the cardinal rules is "No new relationships for a year." But how do you put rules on your heart? On your mind, yes. But how do you put your emotions under lock and key for a year? You can't control your emotions.
But what you CAN control is your actions, and your reactions.
This comes to him like a thunderbolt. It wasn't an idea. It was a voice. One he can't place. Not Mark. Not his sponsor. But gentle. He doesn't really think that God actually spoke to him, like Moses and the Burning Bush, but he has no doubt that he has heard the voice of his Higher Power, none the less.
Calmer now, he speaks. "God, thank you for keeping me sober today, and help me to make the right decisions. Amen."
He remains there, by the front door on his knees for a few more minutes. Then, standing, he flips on the front room lights, and suddenly realizes something is missing.
"Callisto? Where are ya baby girl?" He walks into the bedroom, flips on the lights, and stops. The bundle of fur laying in the middle of his bed isn't moving. She looks like she's sleeping, but he knows. His mind seems frozen. How many years? 10? 11, now? How many times has she crawled up beside him, uncaring that he was so drunk he couldn't control his hand enough to pet her. How many times had he stumbled in the door, so high and tweaked out that, in his heightened emotional state, he and screamed and slapped at her when she started meowing at him and winding around his ankles, hungry for both food and attention, sending her running. Only to feel her nuzzle up to his hand when he finally stopped long enough to sit down. What now? What does he do now?
Have a drink. Man, if you ever deserved it, you do tonight. Raise up a glass and toast her.
No. That's not the solution. I can't.
Sure you can. It's easy. You know there's a bar about a block away.
The voice is insistent. The idea, suductive. He wants a drink more right this very moment than anytime since he walked into the doors of AA 6 months ago. So he does the only thing that seems right. He fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket, and holds the call key down to call the last number he called.
"Hello?"
"Mark? I... Callisto... " and then he can't get the words out through the veil of tears and the sobs.

TODAY

He sleeps. The drugs can't keep him awake anymore, not without a break. And the alcohol that he relies on to dull his senses lulled him into a light doze, which swiftly deepened to the deep sleep the body needs to maintain health and sanity.
He sleeps. And he dreams.
He dreams of a fresh faced young man, just reaching maturity, but with eyes that tell the tale of someone older, with scars and horrors in his past. He dreams of a man more mature, eyes kind, much more handsome when he smiles, but the tightness around his mouth tells much the same story as the younger man's eyes.
He doesn't know these two men. He's heard their tales, has dreamed/lived their lives. He's felt their love. The fast, hot love of the newly infatuated. His mind and heart know that he doesn't deserve what they have. And so these dreams, which should have been pleasant escapes from his own wasted life, become tortured nightmares. The laughing faces in the scenes twist without warning to sobbing, terrified visages. The love in the atmosphere turns quickly to fear, suspicion, and hatred.
As he lays, sweatsoaked and moaning, on the dirty motel sheets, his eyes flickering rapidly in REM sleep, he tosses and turns. And he cries.
He sleeps. He Dreams. And, possibly, he heals.