Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Marcellus (1983): About The Time Laurent Broke Dasius's Nose in a Fight

Full title: About the Time Laurent Broke Dasius's Nose in a Fight about Marcellus in California, and Dasius Somehow Still Won Because He Had Something to Fight For and Laurent Finally Agreed to Leave Them Alone

I can hear him in the room. He has got a box in the mail and refuses to share it with me. 

"Cross? Are you cross? Are you so so cross?" he asked me, before shutting his door in my face. 

The whole box is full of jewelry with really big stones and he won't even let me touch it. What is the point of being so rich? A box full of jewels.  A cigar box or like a really big cigar box. A hat box? I don't know.

"I'm sore," I call to him, through the door. 

"Where?"

"On my neck."

"Put on the tincture I made you and get from my door."

"No tincture. I want to look in your box, please."

No answer.

"I want to look in that box, please," I call out to him. 

Go watch television. Go play some games. I used to eat in situations like this. He buys me magazines and leaves them under the sink in the washroom so that he will never have to see me go get them. He can't stand it when I read them. Why buy them then? He won't ever let me touch his own stash of magazines. Who wants them anyway? 

He will not even give me any money or anything. What the hell is the point? I just want to lie on the carpet and stare at the ceiling. But he doesn't like that either. He's so irritable all the time! 

"You're so mean," I yell at him. "Why are you so mean?"

Nothing.

"I'm going to go out and I'm going to go get run over. I'm going to throw myself off the bridge."

Don't work yourself up, he always says. Don't say things you're going to regret. I'll show you, asshole.

I head into our bedroom to get at his desk, but it's locked. So I grab a metal pair of scissors and chip away at the locked top drawer. It's not that I want anything in it but just to mess things up. He's always hiding things from me. Think I'm so stupid? I'll show you.

I sniffle a little because my neck really hurts where he bit me and it's bleeding again, and the drawer pops right open. All there is inside is old letters. I know not to touch them. I peel up his desk blotter and toss it at the window. 

When I turn around, there he is in the doorway, watching me. He has got a long silver necklace with black stones in it. He has it draped over the backs of his hands. He's watching that I don't touch anything in the drawer.

"Fuck your drawer, and you're stupid, like, your stupid cigar box," I tell him. 

"Why have you got yourself all worked up?"

"Oh my god."

"It is just a box of old things from people you don't know in South Carolina."

"I know your best friend Quinn March!"

"How?" 

"I don't want that necklace. It's ugly."

"It is not a necklace. It is a livery collar. It is for princes."

"Stop it."

"Marcellus, what is the problem you are having?"

"You."

"You have my complete attention."

"Tell me about all that stuff."

He's quiet for a moment. He lets the collar slip down over his right hand, and holds it like a leash. 

"I gave these things to your father to hold, and he's given them up. He's left them down south, and so Quinn March has sent them up to me now. Your father is very upset."

"Did you do that stupid thing where you pretend you gave somebody a present but you expect all your shit back at some point? That's not a present; you're such a dick!"

"What?" He's off guard. He's confused. 

I don't say anything, because he will not listen. He thinks he knows everything. 

"Put down the scissors and we will talk."

"I don't want to talk."

"Those scissors have been stuck in places you would not believe," he says, chuckling. 

"You're not funny."

"How may I appease you, turtledove? How?" 

"What about these letters in the drawer?" 

"Read them."

The bridge of his nose is red. 

"Tell me where you went and what happened to your nose."

He holds his hand out for the scissors and I can't decide whether to stab him or not. 

"I swear to God. And if you don't stop staring at my neck." 

"I'll get that tincture. You go to bed." He goes, as if we are having a normal conversation. Does he think that's what's happening? Normal.

I look at the letters. They are all written in French. There are ones with his name on the backs. All different handwriting. "Hello, Care." "Sweet" and "Dove" and "Butcher". I don't want them. The scissors go in the drawer and I shut it. 

"You come in here," I say, not wanting to cry about it, "after you have been gone for weeks. You lock me up in here."

"You can leave if you want to."

"I will absolutely murder you."

"You are very beautiful," he whispers, putting his right hand into my hand, palm to palm, as if wanting to dance with me, but he only walks me backward to bed. Pushing me gently. His other hand has got a pot of balm in it, for where he tore at my neck when he came home.

"You come in here and without even saying hello you just bite me bloody like that. And you won't even talk. And you get this box in the mail, this stupid box," I say.

He kisses the corners of my eyes. He pushes me into bed. He sits up beside me on his knees, his hand beside my head so that he can hold himself straight while he dabs my raw neck with that mystery tincture, from that little mystery pot.

"Tell me about your nose." I see him make his mouth like "Chou chou" and open my mouth to yell before he can say it.

"Kiss me and be quiet now," he whispers. "You have beautiful lips. Beautiful, pretty lips and you are too pale to fight so much. You are so, so pretty, and now you are mine. I have won you. That is what happened. Now you belong to me."

"Someday I am going to find out where you are sensitive so I can hit you and you will feel it."

"No," he whispers, "no, no, no," laying his body over mine. 

"Don't be sweet it's disgusting."

He whispers that he loves me.

Gross.