Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Dasius (2014) - New Pleasures

"Marcellus," I whispered, in 1982.

"Mm," he hummed, beneath my lips, his chin tipped back. 

I had him in my hands, both hips. My thumbs pressed against his hip bones. His entire body had flushed, and he was never looking more slender and fragile than in bed with me, pushing me away because he wanted to sleep afterward. I pressed my hand against his stomach, just under the ribs. The incredible heat his body could make. I would not ever be used to it.

"Can I kiss you?" I asked.

"Wash your mouth out," he said.

"I don't put water in my mouth," I said, still surprised by the things he didn't know.

"What, never?" he asked.

"Not too much water."

"Oh," he said, not listening.

I tried to kiss him but he put his hand against my face.

"You're cold," he whispered, trying to turn his body. But I had him.

"I need to talk to you."

"I'm sleepy. Can't we just wait until tomorrow?"

At times, he seemed so curious about me. He wanted to know what I liked, and how my body worked. Once, he had let me graze his skin with my teeth, but told me that it hurt. I had found it tantalizing, but I enjoyed him as he was.

"I want to go to that gallery again. You know? I saw some things that we didn't get and I want to look at them again," he murmured.

I had taken him to an antiques concern, had arranged it months in advance. He had wanted to decorate the apartment, and I agreed that it seemed a grim place. He had surprisingly good taste. He'd said, "Can I pick anything I want?" "Anything you want." Afterward he had gone outside and smoked on the stone steps. He'd said he felt like he was in a museum, and when his pieces were delivered he had turned half of it away. Didn't want it anymore. The pieces he had turned away were worth in excess of $100,000, and he shrugged when I asked him why. He took to such a life perhaps too well.

He didn't like jewelry much. He didn't see it as an investment, as I did. A piece of jewelry holds its value, unlike cash. A piece of jewelry is a show of insurance, of upkeep, rather than just a bauble. He didn't see it that way. Somehow, more than anything else, he saw jewelry as suspicious, a bribe. I think that it has to do with his upbringing. Though he never had anything of his own growing up, he hadn't ever wanted for anything either. As far as I know, he never thought of a future where he might have to consider what he could sell. A piece of jewelry is better than a mouth. And he didn't understand why I had to work, when it seemed like none of the others did. He didn't understand why I worked at finding money, why I worked at studying bodies. Sparing poverty. Sparing illness. He never seemed to think of death.

"If you could go now that'd be great," he said, pushing on my head with his hand.

"I need to talk to you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"Why?"

"Marcellus."

"No. I don't want to talk to you. I know you've been talking a lot with L and I don't care about that. I don't care."

He tried to push his thighs up, between my knees, and to unseat me and knock me onto the floor, in a way I had done to him before. But he could not do it, and he struggled, trying to fight me. I grabbed him by the wrist.

"Stop it. Stop this," I said, shaking him a little. I shook him the way I would shake a child's arm.

"Well tell me what he said then. I don't care. I just want you to go away. I'm tired," he said, wanting to sound cute, to sound scared of me, to appease me.