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Daniel has never been a popular kid. He didn’t reside at the bottom of the school hierarchy among outcasts, but neither did he mingle with the brainless bland masses living out the only peak of their lives.
He was ahead of most people his age, working for extra credits by engaging in the afternoon clubs, writing articles about the institution’s lame renovations, building skills to list over his curriculum for the time he’d finally leave. Any actually interesting idea or original project was shut down before conception— the council would not take his disposition seriously, exchanging talent for a youngster’s displaced thrill. He couldn’t write about the real world, his supervisors dedicated their miserable lives sinking his every chance to prove his capacities. Bullshit, Daniel had cursed them. I’m wasting my talent here, it’s their fucking loss.
Naturally, his peers resented his temperament. The few friends he gathered could withstand his character out of habit, just never fully getting where he came from. It was frustrating, but enough to grant Daniel a half satisfying social life.
There was a girl at one point. Daniel can’t remember her name now, just long black hair and a small mouth, smart thing he shared biochem with who occasionally lent him notes and let him rant about his interests. She never showed her teeth when laughing, covering herself with her hand, wearing glasses in classes but never in the halls— not ugly, not good looking, Daniel could see she was trying her best to appeal.
He had not missed her quick glimpses in the corridors, her quirked up little shy smiles, the only greeting she gathered the courage to show. Daniel half absently acknowledged it, smiled back when there was no way out, then went on the rest of day worrying about all else. This went on for around three months.
That was until she stopped him on his way out of his afternoon extracurricular. Another project shot down, Daniel’s residual frustration thickly lingering in his wake. She must have known it wasn’t a good time, he could tell from how her eyes shifted upon seeing him. He gave out that energy sometimes, simply an hostile little boy.
“Hey— is this not a good time? I thought we could take the same path home.“
“Tomorrow, maybe.” Daniel cuts short, walking past her. He didn’t want anyone near him right now. He could still feel his supervisor’s voice. Not good enough, you don’t know what you’re talking about, not in this political climate. Leave that to the actual journalists.
The girl follows him.
“It’s just, it’s not only for the walk itself. There’s something I need to talk to you about. I don’t think it can wait.”
Daniel scoffs. Bad fucking time. He stops by the stalls, leaning against the wall.
“Okay.”
She flinches. He half wonders how aggressive that must have sounded.
She looks away from him, Daniel notices her skin flush before the words leave her lips. “I have feelings for you,” the girl shifts on her feet, staring down to the floor. “I’ve had them for a long time now.”
Three months.
It wasn’t a surprise. More of an inconvenience.
“Yeah,” Daniel mutters, half shy, half wishing he had just gotten home before she could stop him. He isn’t sure what else to say, it’s not like he hadn’t expected it. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Her voice catches up, a brave look in his direction. She reeks of sadness.
“Yes, I know. You haven’t been subtle.”
“Oh.”
She steps back. Simmering regret. It was a bad time, she should have known anyway.
“Is that a—? I thought you’ve— since we talked and all, we got along and you seemed comfortable around me. Aren’t you—?”
“To you?” Daniel mock hisses. Crueler than needed. “Fuck no, definitely not.”
Her eyes widen.
Her nails start stabbing little dents in the inside of her palm, opening and closing her fist. The rapid blinking, the fastening heart, the remorse and humiliation. It must be her first rejection, the first time she gathered enough courage to confess to anyone at all. The last time she ever will.
“M’sorry,” it doesn’t come out right, no genuine nature.
“Daniel—“ oh she insists. “I love—“
There it goes.
“Oh for Christ’s sake— are you that desperate for cock you’ll beg now?”
She flinches back as her eyes brim with tears. It feels so fucking good.
He wonders if.
Daniel steps closer, she’s frozen in place when he tilts her chin up. “Look at you, how small your mouth is—“ his thumb brushes her bottom lip, he chases when she tries to step back. “You’d barely make a sizeable hole. If you can’t suck me off, what makes you think you can date me?”
It can feel better.
She has become flushed with shame, the red painting her skin turns her far more ravishing. Daniel stands to look a bit, then he starts feeling wrong and steps back, feeling his own skin heat up.
What the fuck’s wrong with me?
He leans against the wall, quickly glancing at the stall. Then he checks her up— blatantly, her body would not have been half as bad. Still. She’s so far gone now, barely keeping her tears in.
Yet. What if he—
“You know what, if you really want me, maybe I can do you this one favour. Get inside, I’ll do you quick, but I don’t wanna see your face. You’ll need to cover up.“
Her eyes shine, but they don’t shy away, just like Daniel can’t take his eyes off her quivering lips, her trembling hands. She’ll take it. Fuck— she’s so desperate that she’ll take it.
No words. She slips inside, half restrains a sob on the way in.
Daniel remains marble still, absorbed in his own head. He’s rock hard in his pants, warmth coiling and pricking his lower abdomen, tugging pleasure urging him inside. Humiliatingly so.
Why does it feel so good?
He doesn’t linger on the psychology of it, reaching after her soon, perhaps too hurried. Good thing he had a leftover bag in backpack.
Her tears taste good. He finds out when he lifts the bag off her head, pulls her long black hair, does the most to make her cry harder. Daniel found he doesn’t have to look at her, she won’t look at him either, fixed on either the floor or the wall. She’d be like a corpse, were it not for those small noises edging closer to sobs the harder he thrusts into her.
When it is done, he flushes the condom into the toilet, quickly zips himself up as she sits by the corner, her knees touching, the grimy floor staining he legs. Daniel considers reaching a hand out, stops before he can. After this display, kindness would be ridiculously cruel.
“They’re gonna lock us in, it’s late.” Daniel opts for instead.
She absently nods, stands on her buckling legs, pulling her pants up. Not another word, she leaves before him.
Daniel remains there for a while more, swimming into that sweet post coital haze. There’s shame blended in it as well, yet it’s not a deterrent. It should be. He watches his hands, lets the heat of his body die down, waits for the inevitable feeling of rotten flesh and passive horror, the disgust a butchery like such should invoke. It doesn’t rise.
I’m gonna be so fucked up over this.
He manages to leave shortly after. Days pass, weeks, months, and still that regret never catches up.
***
In his late twenties, he meets Alice.
She’s a brilliant woman, way out of his league for what concerns Daniel, but endeared enough with his work she’s willing to put up with his less appealing traits. He entertains her during the day, attempts to be charming with words, offers to pay for their dates and gifts her new things every other week. She’s the smartest woman he has been with so far, the dialectic which does the job for most girls is her everyday common language. She’s an intellectual equal. She’s all he wants.
Whether it’s a flower bouquet or a jewel set, Daniel starts carefully splitting his precarious pay check, making sure a portion is always reserved for Alice. Making sure she doesn’t lose interest.
During the night, however, he abandons himself to earthly pleasures, forgets Alice is a person. She turns into concept as he swims deep into the haze, a bubble of safety to run back to whenever things get bad, his pillar of stability. It is love, in a way, even when his physical attraction to her wavers and his flesh responds only to the messed up kind of love— men who tears him to pieces, eager inexperienced boys, untouched girls. He loves Alice, he really does, but she’s far too pure for his filthy indulgence.
I won’t do any better than her, Daniel thinks to himself, collapsing onto the club’s couch, bleeding copiously over the cushions. They have all left. There’s a rubber band tied around his bicep he’s forgotten about, constricting his blood flow, soon turning his arm numb. How old was that girl? She was out of high school, yes, she told me was.
It gets bad again.
He keeps Alice close out fear, really, for all the times he slips and messes up, her patient kind eyes glaze over him with a judgement-free pity. She’s scared, to put it simply, but not done with him yet. Even the times where he truly fucks up, bent and grimy from endless nights, stuttering instead of talking, she tends to his wounded flesh like a disappointed mother.
He should propose before she ditches him.
You must stop. Please—
He made her cry. Asshole.
You’re right. Daniel mutters like a broken record, numb, feeling the napkin gently tap under his nose, soaking that ever flowing red. Her hand trembles as she cleans. There’s something else, an we’ll talk later she keeps postponing. She hasn’t been drinking with him anymore. Could it be—?
The rooms spins, with that his every thought gets thrown out the peripheral corners of his mind. M’sorry. I’m sorry. This is the last time.
They both know it’s a lie.
***
He keeps having visions.
Daniel can’t tell whether his brain has been scrambled up for good and now the consequences are catching up to him. Not letting go of his vices was a gamble, he’d always known. Truth to be told, Daniel assumed he’d be young forever, but now as the years pass by he comes to realise he has nothing to show for his life. His mild journalistic accomplishments serve him no pleasure as he lies alone in his apartment, waiting for his pills to kick in.
The visions help, for what little time they last. Daniel has come to not need anything else. Settling back on the couch, closing his eyes and letting It come to rescue. It takes the shape of a beautiful man, the picture of all those boys he’s caught a sight of during late nights, blended together in an angelic being, as nurturing and caring as Alice.
When It comes, It gathers part of the thrash around the house, pencils fallen to the floor, bubble wraps, plastic and glass bottles— God, the house has been a mess since she left.
Daniel cries tears of joy when It comes close, a blessing undue. It brushes his tears away, beams into his body the haze and warmth only pills and dust and syringes can replicate— just without the confusion. He isn’t lost, he is right here.
“I need you,” Daniel slurs. He’s not sure when the hand gets on his cheek, when it retreats, how the lack of it burns his body. “Don’t go.” He grabs his wrist, pulls, tries to hurt It into staying. “Don’t leave me again. Please. Please—“
“This is the last time.”
The echo of Alice’s presence. His own lie.
“Fuck you, no!” Daniel tugs the arm of the angel, topples It over the couch with a sudden, brutal force. He holds the creature still, violently trembling in his ministrations. There comes the kick, the anger, the wrong side of the high. “You’re not supposed to contradict, to remind me. You are supposed to—“
“Comfort,” It replies calmly, surrendering to the roughness, humour the poor mortal who cannot grasp how to feel without harming the next closest thing. “Endear you, aid you without pointing. You kill yourself and expect all the people you love to slow down the process. It’s the use you’ve decided for me. But you, Daniel, you don’t love me. There is no need for me to be something I am not.”
Daniel blinks. dry. Itchy. He gets lost into the fire, the solar eclipses of his eyes. He needs to prove It wrong, he wants, he has to prove him wrong.
“And I don’t love you.”
Alice neither.
“It doesn’t change a fucking thing.” Daniel’s hand fits around the angel’s collar, struggles to unbutton it. There comes the dizziness, the sickness of the stalls catching up decades post butchery. The angel looks just as innocent as the first girl he breached.
“Yes,” Armand sighs, tilting his head away. The creature’s eyes brim with blood. “It wouldn’t change anything, not to you.”
Go ahead then, claim your comfort.