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.