Mama Mia

Mark opened the door and saw a blurry V of white ass jackrabbit-ing between his mother's legs. Jesus Christ, how can you even feel anything going that fast? Then again, Dan did everything at hyper-speed - walking, talking, writing, typing, even his eyes twitched so quickly you almost couldn't see the tiny blinks. Fuck, his turds probably came out of his ass like missiles leaving a silo. He closed the door.

It opened just as quickly behind him. "Mark-"

He turned around.

"You need to learn how to knock-"

"You need to learn how to lock the door-"

"Don't be smart-"

"Don't be careless-"

Sarah looked down as she finished fastening her robe and sighed. "What did you want?"

"I was just going to tell you that I was leaving-"

"Where are you going?"

"I told you - to Mr. Cook's house-"

"Who's Mr. Cook?"

"Geez, mom, I told you. He's my English teacher. We're going to watch a movie and talk about books and stuff-"

"Mark-"

"What?"

"Is he a homosexual?"

Mark could hear, above the blood sprinting to his brain, Dan smoothing the sheets in the room behind his mother. He looked her in the eyes, a mirror of himself but older and in female form. "I don't know-"

"Well, you better. You know what The Bible says about them-"

"I know what it says about fucking Flash when you're not married to him, too-"

Sarah's hand was cold, then warm against Mark's cheek and barely made a sound. "Don't use language like that in my house-"

"Don't throw stones in your house-"

"Don't use cliches in my house-"

"Touche-"

Sarah put her arms around Mark's shoulders and giggled. "I just worry about you, honey. I don't want you to go to Hell."

"Don't you worry about that. I don't." Mark kissed her cheek and walked out the front door.

Golden Rule Dayz

Mark stood up and looped his book bag over his left shoulder when the final bell of the day rang.

"Mark, can you come here for a second?"

He made his way over to Mr. Cook, whose first name was Irwin and who hated that fact and did everything to avoid its mention. Mr. Cook was in his thirties, a tall man with an anorexic build, who looked like he'd be much more comfortable on a runway in his Old Navy clothes than talking about books in front of a bunch of open-mouthed, bored kids, of which his youthful looks made him seem as one, so much so that many times he'd been mistaken for just another apathetic student, even by his own colleagues. Mark always felt under-dressed walking into Mr. Cook's classroom and now thought he was almost naked.

"So did you at least like Dorian Gray?"

"Oh, yeah, I liked it. It was very well-written and put together. I just, um, I'm just disappointed in Wilde-"

"How so?"

"Well, for all his philosophizing and arguing about art for art sake's and experiencing the soul through the senses and vice versa, in the end, he essentially says that's all crap and will just lead to a life of insanity and a not so very nice death-"

"You can't confuse an author with his work. His biography and his writing are two different things-"

"No, but you can expect more." Mark looked up at the clock on the wall above them. "Look, I understand that a work of the imagination is just that. But that's only good in theory. This is real life. And if you're going to make yourself a household name and live a certain way and pretty much support a specific way of living, then you shouldn't write a novel that says just opposite. It's just disingenuous and cynical and insecure and makes one question everything about you and your work." He looked up at the clock again. "I'm gonna miss my bus-"

"Where do you live?"

"In Cedarville. In the Westfield development."

"So do I. Burberry Court."

"I'm on Manson Ave. On the other side."

"I can give you a lift home-"

"Cool-"

Mr. Cook's Toyota was a small affair of chipped paint, dog-eared books, smashed insects, dust, and great gas mileage. "You know, you're the only student who gets it-"

"Really? Thanks-"

"I mean - and don't you repeat a word of this - the rest of these kids are just out of it. At least you read the books-"

"Actually, I read all of them years ago-"

"Wow. Really?"

"Yeah. A few times-"

"Jesus." Mr. Cook shook his head. Behind his words, the light, trembling guitars and moaning voice of an indistinct British band could be heard spitting from the speakers under the dashboard. "See, that's what I mean. Not only do the others not get it, they don't even give themselves the chance to get it." He cleared his throat. "So what do your parents say about you reading so much?"

"It's just my mom. I live with her and her boyfriend-"

"Oh. Divorced?"

"No. My father was murdered-"

"I'm so sorry. Forgive me-"

"It's okay. He was murdered by a serial killer in the state where we used to live-"

"Oh, my God-"

"Right before I was born-"

"Mark, I'm really sorry-"

"It's okay. It's not like I knew him or anything-"

Mr. Cook glanced at Mark and shifted in his seat. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No-"

"No? Why not?"

"I don't know-"

"A good-looking guy like you? You should be having to beat them off with a stick-"

Mark giggled. "That sounds interesting-"

Mr. Cook laughed and put his foot on the brake as he pulled in front of Mark's house. "There you go-"

Mark got out of the car. "Thanks for the ride-"

"Mark-"

"Yeah?" Mark leaned into the passenger side window.

"We'll have to hang out some time-"

"That's cool-"

"Do you like chocolate?"

"Yeah, I guess-"

A Hershey bar appeared in the palm of Mr. Cook's hand. "I got 3 for a dollar but could only eat 2-"

Mark grabbed it, his fingers scraping the back of his teacher's hand. He looked into Mr. Cook's bespectacled eyes from under his blond bangs and grinned. Mr. Cook looked away with a smile. "I'll see you in school tomorrow-"

"Cool-"

Mark slid the chocolate bar into his pocket and skipped up the driveway.

All Good Things

Mark dropped the pliers and the tooth on the bed beside Maggie's cool, stiff body and the 31 other teeth that had recently called Daniel's mouth home. He leaned over and looked into the boy's blurry, rolling eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Mark slapped his face, the pasty blood from Daniel's mouth decorating the wall.

"Mark-"

He slapped him again.

"Dude-"

Mark unclasped his straight razor, held up Daniel's shirt by the collar and sliced it down the middle.

"Where's Maggie?"

Mark nodded. Daniel's eyes widened as he strained against the ropes strapped around his wrists and ankles, his torso writhing against the lifeless body beneath him. "Fuck-"

Mark relieved Daniel of his jeans and briefs with the razor and grabbed the boy's penis. It seemed even larger than the last time he'd sat on it. He put the razor to its base, his own erection trying its best to fill with more blood.

"No. Mark, why are you doing this? I love you-"

"There's no such thing as love-"

"Yes, there is-"

"Ha! You wouldn't know what love was if it fucking walked up to you and raped you as good as I raped her-"

"Mark-"

"What?"

"How'd you finish it?"

"Your favorite-"

"Oh." Daniel's pants lessened in frequency. "Do me the same way-"

Mark squeezed Daniel's limp penis in his hand and brought the straight razor to rest firmly on the hole on its tip. With a sigh, he dragged the smeared metal through its length till his knuckles were firmly ensconced against Daniel's scrotum and the small bedroom was thick with the boy's whimpering.

"You son of a bitch. I fucking hate you. I hope you die." Daniel gasped three or 4 times, the blood of his gums rattling in his throat. "You've got the smallest fucking dick in the world-"

"Hilaaaarious," said Mark. And he stuffed an enormous wad of toilet paper into Daniel's mouth. He squeezed the boy's nostrils together until the bed began to shake with violence, then he let go and lit a cigarette, gently placing the match on the mound of toilet paper. As the fire reached Daniel's lips, Mark threw his hands on the boy's twisting, veiny neck and pressed until the windpipe relented and all was still in the the room but the blood rushing to his penis.

He gathered up Daniel's teeth, his razor, and his pliers and shoved them into his pocket. With the care of a surgeon, he untied the ropes from the boy's extremities, then lit and positioned the remaining matches around the two teenagers on the twin bed. As he left his bedroom for the last time, he looked back at the growing blaze. "Yeah. Good times," he said, shrugging, and closed the door behind him.

Life's Tough

"Where you been?"

"Um, nowhere-"

"I mean, I haven't seen you in, like, weeks-"

"Yes, you have. At school-"

"Yeah, and all you do is-"

"I've been really busy-"

"Why don't you want to hang out anymore-"

"since we got back from vacation-"

"How was that?"

"Okay. Just me and my parents-"

"Cool-"

"Yeah, listen, I gots to go-"

"Who's that?"

"Who's that?"

"Who fucking is it?" Mark squeezed the cordless till he could no longer hear it cracking and creaking in his numb fingers.

"Dude, it's Maggie-"

"Maggie? Who?"

"Maggie Lolley-"

"What's she doing there?"

"Um, we're going out-"

"Where?"

"I mean, we're going with each other-"

"Where?"

"Like boyfriend and girlfriend-"

"Oh-" Mark's grip on the cordless loosened. So much that he almost dropped it. A pressure, like that of a vise on a delinquent druggie's fingers, formed behind his eyes, forcing them to swell. "Fuck-" His voice broke.

"Mark-"

"What?"

"Don't be like this, man-"

"Like what?"

"You know-"

"Fuck-"

"Come on, Mark-"

"Fuck, man-"

"You knew-"

"Fuck-" Mark pushed the OFF button and threw the phone on his New York Giants-clad bed. He wiped his eyes and sat down at his desk, vacuuming a wad of thick, salty snot down the back of his throat as he snatched the stained straight razor out of the drawer. Slowly, he pulled it across the paper-thin skin of his veiny forearm until he couldn't feel anything but a familiar tightening in his groin-

Fucking Maggie Lolley, the whore. Walking down the hallway, her ass an upside-down heart pillow stuffed in a pair of jeans meant for a girl half her size, her floppy breasts two shivering ghosts of the woman she thought she was but would never be. All he'd ever wanted to do was hold her down and force sex on her. But now. "Fuck-"

He licked the razor, then bent down and put his mouth over the welcome gash in his forearm, a close facsimile of the one on his other arm. And his thigh. And his ass. And his neck. And his other thigh. And his-

As he slurped in silence, he stared at the spots on the carpet under him, lonely red raindrops in a desert of beige shag carpet. From under his brow, he glanced up at the picture of Claude on his desk, framed in a piece of cheap, plastic wood engraved with the words 'In Memoriam,' and began to laugh, his lips pasted with his own warm, sticky blood, his underwear absorbing the pre-ejaculate slipping out of the hole in his penis.

Arsenic, No Lace

Mark lay in his twin bed, Daniel's head in the crook of his armpit, his leg looped over Daniel's, watching Spongebob Squarepants. At each commercial, he put his nose into the thickness of Daniel's mud-brown hair and inhaled deeply the tincture of shampoo he'd smelled so many times over the last 4 years. Puppies' entrails. Side of beef. Asshole. Licked clean. Growing cocks. Blood from an unused vagina. Five year-old balls ripped to shreds. But yet. It was always there. The scent. He kissed Daniel's head as the cartoon returned-

Thwick.

Before Mark could realize he'd forgotten to lock the door, Claude's beige, rocky knuckles were bruising his left cheek. The man grabbed Daniel's arm and put the boy to his feet with one jerk of his wrist. "Get!" Claude locked the door behind him and unbuckled his belt. "That's what I thought-" He unzipped his baggy, stained work slacks and stepped out of them, his two-tone erection bouncing. "We ain't gonna have no faggot shit in this house. You hear me, boy?"

Claude grabbed Mark, turned him over, and pulled his pants and underwear to his knees in one motion. He spit in his ass crack, smeared it with the tip of his hard-on and pushed his way into his rectum, his forearm against the back of the boy's shaking neck. He pistoned 3 or 4 lengths of his dick in and out and came in the bottom of Mark's torn guts. At the door, he turned back to the prostrate boy. "Remember, no faggot shit in this house-"

Mark pulled up his pants and locked the door, then resumed his place on the bed. He wiped his eyes, trying to extinguish the fire in anus. Daniel, oh Daniel. That scent. Where? Mama. Her belly. The floor. Handcuffs. 9mm. Her temple. Pull it. Pull it. Pull it. You fucking pussy. Pull it. Orange. Jumpsuit. Mama.

Mark awoke and looked at his digital clock. 1:45. In socked feet, he unlocked the door and slid-shuffled his way to the tiny, broken kitchen downstairs without a sound. He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed the large porcelain bowl with the masking tape on it that read, "Claude. Keep Out." Then he pulled out a heavy box from under the sink, the only visible image on it in the dark a large rat with X's for eyes, and dumped its contents into the bowl. Slowly, he mixed it in with a wooden spoon on the counter top, then replaced the items and made his way back upstairs, the match stick of pain in his anus a distant memory, the scent of Daniel suddenly coming to his brain from his top puckered lip.