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Creatures of habit were indigenous to the bright, sprawled region of Western Suburbia. Levi would kill for a cigarette and forced a stick of minty gum between his gnashing teeth instead. The New Year was close. He'd already started on his resolution. He chewed irritably, standing in front of the kitchen stove, peering out that large open window just above it. Children were playing outside. He thought he could smell freshly cut crass. Erwin’s chin was digging heavily into his shoulder, and the man pressed for the second time that afternoon, “So what’s for dinner?” His arms were looped around Levi’s waist, holding him loosely but maybe possessively too.
Levi snatched his eyes from the warmth of an apparent summertime lurking just outside that window and set them on the pot bubbling on the stovetop. He’d been stirring for the last ten minutes, but he couldn’t say he knew what exactly it was he was supposed to be stirring in the first place. He ceased in his chewing. “...Your favorite.” It was a simple answer. The wooden spoon scraped the bottom of the pot noisily. Erwin nuzzled the side of his neck, stubble scratching at his skin and making him twitch.
Above, or maybe all around them, there was the glow of an automated message that seemed to make the scene quake. Little glitches, glimpses of a less glamorous reality.
“Five minutes remaining in simulation New Home 6590. Add more time?”
“Thirty minutes.” Erwin muttered, tightening his grip on Levi.
“530 Credits withdrawn. Thank you for your patronage.”
The message alert faded and they were left alone with the shimmering sunlight and the laughing children and that bubbling pot of mysterious broth. “...When’s the last time you shaved? Are you taking care of yourself? Is it… Is it okay for you to be spending your credits on this?”
Erwin chuckled. The sound was a deep rumble in his chest. “I’m offended you think I can’t afford you. Could you get rid of the gum, please?”
Levi spat it into the broth and watched it float. Erwin unwrapped one arm from around him to begin unknotting the bow to his apron behind him. Levi wore nothing underneath. “That’s not what I meant. But...”
“It’s play money, Levi. Really.” Erwin tugged him away from the stove and shoved him towards the counter, where Levi’s body rag-dolled. He went limp, cheek planted against the clean white surface. He spread his legs mechanically as Erwin pried his ass cheeks apart. Levi flinched as he spat on his hole.
“Tell me you love me. Or is that extra?”
Levi clenched his eyes shut. “I love you, Erwin.”
As Erwin began to force his dick into him, his asshole thoroughly stretched and prepared before Erwin had even arrived for their scheduled session, Levi wondered how it was the developers of OlfactoryTech had managed to capture the exact scent of freshly cut grass and summertime heat.
Levi spent too much time in the showers on site after his shift.
Digging cum out of his ass with clawed fingers and gripping at the slick tiled wall. There was the imprint of human molars in his shoulder. An angry red love bite from his least favorite customer. He pried his fingers from out of himself and soaped himself up. Peered dimly up at the ceiling and tried not to think about Erwin Smith. There was always an unwelcome sharp-edged emotion when he pictured the man’s face. The feeling was not unlike what he felt when he glanced at tin can gripping bums in the rain. Fingerless gloves and hollow eyes and toothless maws.
It was easy for most people to get lost in these environments around this time of year. Christmas, New Years. Loneliness was this decade’s version of venereal disease, a kind of havoc in the hearts of millions. Enter, your local DreamScape. Enter, glamorous AR househusband or housewife simulators where you could pretend you’d really achieved something in life. Levi was a whore like any other, except he made a dream or two come true during that dragging 8 hour shift. He felt that he could always tell when he was in the simulation.
He had learned to see the seams. The edges of the Dream, where it didn’t quite meet reality.
Levi splashed his face.
Erwin always looked like shit. Possibly one of his least groomed customers, with deep bags beneath his eyes that gave the impression that actual anvils resided in the sunken flesh. Erwin’s breath stunk of whiskey tonight and it was near impossible for him to maintain an erection. Levi would ride him until he felt his cock softening in his ass. Then he’d get off him and suck him until he was erect. Ride him until he was soft. Rinse and repeat.
Levi’s jaw ached and his cheeks were flushed from overexertion. He rested between the man’s spread legs, mouth full and throat convulsing. Spit trailed down his chin thinly. Erwin’s thick brass pubes gave off the faint stench of urine and sweat. Levi tugged himself off the man’s hard dick, coughing and grinding his clenched fist into one of his shut eyes.
The moonlight coming in from the open window lit them just barely and the night air rolled in on easy breezes. The latter was actually a quietly whirring fan in the belly of the machine they were residing in for the next half hour. Erwin’s eyes had strayed to a framed picture of him and Levi at the altar. A wedding that had never happened. Levi spat on the wrinkled maroon sheet. “Pull up your underwear.”
Erwin blinked lazily. Drunk or tired or both. “Mm?”
“Shit just... Get up. Come on, Smith.”
Levi crept off the bed and tugged the slow-moving golem from the bedroom and down the hall. The floorboards creaked convincingly. The bathroom door was coming up on their left. Levi nudged it open with his bare foot. Flipped on the light inside. The mirror cast their reflections as Levi undressed and urged Erwin to do the same, tugging the man’s sweatshirt over his head along with his sweat stained tank top.
Levi ran a bath.
Unwrapped a fresh stick of gum.
He and Erwin sat in the tub as it filled, steaming water little but a puddle beneath their asses. Levi sat with his legs held to his chest. Erwin was sprawled, limbs everywhere. Too big. His thick dick was slowly shriveling between his legs. The unshaven man was studying Levi with his glass blown eyes. Every time he blinked Levi worried that delicate shade of blue would shatter beneath the pressure of his eyelids. “You think I’m pathetic, don’t you Levi?”
“Yeah.”
Erwin barked a laugh, head resting against the tiled wall. “How do you manage to get any customers like that?”
Levi’s eyes darted off to the side to avoid meeting the man’s gaze. He said nothing, teeth working his gum into a thin paste. They sat there in silence, listening to the rush of running water. Levi cut the faucet off when the tub was sufficiently full.
“You called me Smith, earlier. I hate when you do that.”
“It won’t happen again.” Levi grasped at the soap. Moved closer to begin scrubbing at the man’s unwashed skin. The aroma was pleasant. Sea Salt and Driftwood. He supposed it was the same soap in the showers on the first floor of his workplace. He straddled the man and soaped up his hairy chest. He was quick and professional about it, mouth drawn into a slight grimace that seemed to make Erwin smile fondly in return.
“You’re not very good at being sexy, Levi.”
“Then why do you keep coming back?”
“Maybe your sour demeanor is charming. You complain so much about my bad habits that I feel like we really are married, with divorce maybe a few months on the horizon...”
Levi’s grimace deepened. He stuck his gum back in the wrapper resting on the lip of the tub.
“I don’t know why you bother with that, Levi. I like when you taste like smoke.”
He didn’t feel like explaining what a New Year’s Resolution was to a man who likely hadn’t attempted one in years. Figured that Erwin would be into the ashtray-tongue aesthetic, as allergic to hygiene as he was.
He ceased in his washing to give the man a quick kiss. He felt nothing. Still. He kissed him again. Again and again until Erwin kissed him back. It was sloppy and uncoordinated, and Levi couldn’t stand the bitter taste of his tongue but sucked upon it hard enough to get Erwin to groan. Levi slung his arms around the man’s neck as he treated him to a Hollywood, picture perfect kiss. Brilliant and bright and soulless. He parted from it slowly, with Erwin trailing after his wet lips with his own. Desperately seeking more of him.
Levi held him back with a firm hand on his chest.
“Time’s up.”
Erwin stalked him. Frequently actually, but was altogether too harmless for Levi to work up any real anxiety over. A lost puppy creeping in an electric car with the headlights flipped off, the neon world screaming around it. He had become a constant in Levi’s walks home. Levi would chew his gum and trudge through snow with thick boots, hunched between his shoulders and exhaling little puffs of white into the still, frigid air. And Erwin would follow.
It could be anyone, there was no proof that it was him. But he was a suspicious man in all ways and Levi had a sixth sense for him. Could feel him, knew when he was close and when he was far.
Most of the men and women who visited him at DreamScape left it at that. He was a hole, he was a dick, he was a fucking fantasy. Erwin was exactly the kind of man who’d convince himself that what he was doing was justified. He paid Levi, he loved Levi- so maybe he’d told himself he had a right to Levi with all that in mind.
It was late, a few blinks from midnight. Shops were closed. His apartment loomed in the distance.
Firecrackers popped overhead. He remembered a week ago had been his birthday, and he’d spent that day getting plowed for rent money. Today was the start of a new year, and he’d spent it much the same, but for utility bills instead.
Levi didn’t glance over his shoulder. He didn’t cut through any alleys to escape. He was apathetic, unmoved. He aggressively, compulsively, chewed his gum and tried not to think about cigarettes, cigarettes- fuck.
As far as nasty habits went, Erwin was the crowned champion of them, Levi a close second.
Levi stopped walking. His fingers twitched in his pockets. The car had crept to a stop not far behind. He listened to the way the wheels crunched over uneven, poorly paved road. Still no flying cars. The future was just the past with enough glitzy new toys to fool people into thinking there had been any progress.
Levi turned on the worn heels of his boots and faced the car. Tinted windows. It was a mud streaked, unwashed thing. Marred paint. Levi approached it. A fast, self-assured gait.
The passenger side window rolled down for him. The interior was crowded with take out boxes. Miscellaneous shoes and socks, ripped open Amazon packaging. Levi leant down with dull eyes that fixed upon his least favorite customer. Irritable, fringe caught up in a near-arctic breeze, “You’re not going to kidnap me.”
He believed Erwin had the nerve. He did not believe he had the energy. Depressed, deflated man that he was, he didn’t even have the energy to wash.
“I,” Erwin had his hands wrapped around the steering wheel, heat blowing hot, console glowing bluer than his shifty eyes. Soaking wet with guilt. “I assure you I had no intention of doing so.”
Erwin wasn’t stupid so he didn’t waste time with stupid questions. ‘How did you know it was me’ would qualify as a stupid question. Levi blew a bubble.
It popped over his lips as his obsidian eyes flicked up to watch another firecracker split the sky.
“So what, then?” Levi unburdened his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue. “What’s the plan, Smith? Run it by me.”
“Coffee.” Erwin squeezed at the steering wheel with those large hands. Hands big enough to splinter a neck, Levi thought. “Tea. I think I’ve been planning to ask you for tea. I’m aware you would reject me.”
“Probably. So what’s plan B?” Levi settled his arms on the windowsill, chin resting on the top one. Erwin didn’t squirm beneath his withering gaze. Maybe he even leaned closer towards the passenger side to get more of it.
“I’m in the process of plotting. I’ll let you know when I have something a little more daring in mind.”
Levi supposed what he hated about Erwin was that the man had the ability to make him give the last shit that he had for losers like him.
Down-on-my-luck, dead inside, hollow eyed men.
“Happy New Year, Smith.” Levi peeled himself away from the door, leaving the warmth and must of Erwin’s car. He took steps towards his apartment, one that stood tall against the smoky backdrop of midnight.
Like a hook, that pity caught in the skin at the back of his neck and made him turn back. Look back.
“Are you coming? I can smell the alcohol on your breath.” Levi looked back towards his apartment building. He thought it seemed to shimmer. Glass windows reflect blooming fire flowers. “You can’t drive like that.”
“I don’t have any money.” Sheepish, Erwin finally admitted what Levi had always been acutely aware of. “For your services, I mean.”
“The couch is always free.”
Levi thought about digging his cigarettes out of the lock-box he kept under his bed as Erwin cut off his car and eagerly spilled out into the snow. Like Levi’s couch was a start.