Slow Fade Out On A Sunrise

         So I’ve been sitting on his face for at least half an hour and he’s deep-throating my dick, but my nuts aren’t tightening. Maybe he’s not providing enough suction or his mouth is wider than I’m used to, not that my dick isn’t thick. I mean, it’s not a fucking club or even a beer can, but it’s not a goddamn needle. Regardless, my scrotum should not still be hanging below his bearded chin. By now, he should be dining on my seed.
         His e-mail stated he liked to be dominated, and I see that as the only way to make this end. Why did I even respond? Sure, rolling pita wraps can be monotonous, but why in hell did I bring this on myself? And to think that I even went out of my way to make this enjoyable for him. From whatever remaining clothes in our old apartment, I got together a really snappy outfit together for him. I took a quick shower; I briefly groomed.
         Now my leg is beginning to cramp. Time to make this interesting. Shifting my body up and forcing his hands up behind his head, I just start fucking pistoning my dick in and out of his mouth. He seems to be gurgling some kind of dissent, but I’m not listening. After a few minutes of just riding his face, I feel close enough that I pull out and stroke myself off. He is sucking on my balls, which is really just annoying me so I force his head back and unload all over his face. Game, set, match.
         The radio station I randomly turned on when I first got here has some Brit fag singing that the world is full of crashing bores. How cinematic.
         After using the back of his paw to wipe my rather copious load off, he looks me straight in the eye and asks me how our one month anniversary date is going. It takes all the power in me to not laugh or tackle him and start hammer fisting his jaw. We’ve shot back maybe ten e-mails over the past month before meeting. He sees this as dating. I see this as hilarious and tell him to leave. Bravely, stupidly, he moves forward for some sort of embrace and, even though we have yet to kiss because he is about thirty pounds heavier than he stated, four inches shorter, and his six inch cock was the size of my middle finger, he thinks I will kiss him now.
         I push him away. My traitor dick takes this as more dominating and starts to harden again. He glances down, actually licks his lips, and gets down on his knees. I should’ve fucking slammed the door as soon as I opened it. Better yet, when I saw his number on my phone, I should have fucking launched my phone at the crackhead in the alley outside my work, but no. I’m now getting head again from this punk who can’t even give head.
         Pulling back and freeing my dick from his deathtrap mouth of mediocrity with an audible pop, I feign exhaustion and tell him I’ll call him in a few days, on my next day off. Sulking, he puts his clothes on and leaves without saying another word.
         Phone rings. I hobble over to where it sits on the scuffed hardwood floor. My leg is still cramping. Is it possible that the sexual conscience resides in one’s left leg and cramps when one is being an arrogant asshole? I’m expecting a manic phone call from him, apologizing for whatever he did wrong and wanting me back.
         I run down the stairs, leg miraculously cured by love’s healing hands, and his plane is about to take off. Pushing past silently sad families carting around loads of Christmas gifts, knocking over the sullen teenager with an iPod treating us all to his suicide anthem, her self esteem dive, I see him, my man, my heart, my everything about to board. Before he disappears from my life, he deserves to know that I love him and I have always loved him and I will always love him. Whitney Houston ballad or Frou Frou technoshit. Your choice. He tears up his ticket. We tearfully embrace. Two days later, we realize we practically hate each other.
         Instead, my ex-boyfriend is calling. If this is better or worse than what I was expecting is still undecided. Warily, I answer, preparing for a drunken rambling of why he just stopped talking to me two months ago after four months because he hates me for ruining his life, future. I say “Hello?”, hoping for a sober apology and admission that he came out to his family and they kicked him out but he only wants to be with me so it doesn’t matter. From somewhere in between that comes “I’ve been having some problems and I just wanted to get away for a night. Can I come pick you up?”.
         His request is so deliciously vague that I must agree to meet him.

         Flashback montage with background music:
In Circles-Sunny Day Real Estate or Land Of A Thousand Words-Scissor Sisters

-Meeting on Broad Street line, northbound. He is rushing down the stairs for the train and looks so cute when he is stressed out. I nonchalantly stick my arm into the door, keeping it open for him. Our eyes meet. Smiles. I’m too unassertive to say anything. He leaves a few stops down. One of his audition head shots sits on the seat he vacated.

-First date, we are walking around Center City. Eating soft pretzels. Conversation miraculously flowing. We start laughing as we pass an alley. He pushes me back into the alley and kisses me. Hard.

-Driving in his personally rebuilt vintage car under a veil of rain.

-Clip of dialogue, deep voice, over previous shot: You know, I could fall in love with you. You broke me. Different speaker: Or I fixed you. First voice (laughing): You, are so lame. Second speaker: And yet so hopelessly adorable. I love you. (echoes)

-Argument. Shoving him into wall. Mounted crucifix and paintings shake. His crying gets heavier. I do all I can; I hold his shaking body, puffy face. His poor fingers dig into my shoulders for a grip, support.

-He is onstage, performing as the Emcee. I’m in the audience, second row. His family is in the row in front, three seats to my left. They continually glance at me.

-Stage door. He comes out and...shakes my hand. In the background, right corner of the shot, his family stands.
-A shot I don’t understand, as the music climaxes. He sits, surrounding whiteness squinting my eyes. His eyes are scared, large. The camera }smash cuts through his skin and into his veins. Blood cells, squished little former heart shapes, fly by.

         End montage.

         Our old landlord will be moving new tenants in tomorrow so I grab my work uniform and the other randomly strewn and rejected clothing. They, along with a half empty dandruff shampoo bottle and my roommate’s Britney Spears clock, get shoved into my high school backpack littered with inspirational/angsty quotes from before I became your jaded narrator. Tired of patrolling around in the unair-conditioned former residence, I kill the lights, lock the door, and say goodbye to the old South Philly homestead. At least it went out with a bang. Ha. Good one.
         On a piece of broken wall tile, I scribble “the keys are at the basement door” and toss my set down the hall before shoving the note into the crack on the front of the railing. Swinging the door open for the final time, I am met with humidity, the trademark Philly stink, and strippers from the Dolphin Tavern across the street. I will miss living down here, and that was an honest statement. Four “spare some change?” later, he honks from the other side of Tasker.
         Walking up, I notice he has shaved his head, maybe for a new show. He looks smaller too, stunted. My first thought is that Schindler’s List is finally being adapted into a musical. I laugh to myself as I get into his...sweet ride.
         “Hey,” he says. Then nothing. Yes, “hey” shattered the ice. No more awkwardness left. And to think I was worried about not having anything to talk about.
         “What’s going on, man?” I shoot back, proving I’m just as comfortable in this situation as he is.
         Pause. Long, pregnant pause. Painful.
         “So, what do you want to do?” he offers, as I catch my first good look at his eyes. What first drew me to him. Now blunt, frosted over. He’s just, I don’t know.
         “Can we go to Melrose? I’m hungry”
         He smiles, but it never reaches past his mouth. “I actually already grabbed you two grilled cheese from there before I called you. Is that alright?”
         “Oh, yeah, thanks. Can we stop down the street-”
         But this boy has obviously done his homework and pulls out a bottle of my favorite Vitaminwater before I even finish. I already miss him. I give him an incredibly odd side hug thing, which I immediately want to take back solely because I know I looked so ridiculous doing it.
         “Wait, what’s wrong? I can eat in your car!?”
         “No. You have anything else tonight?”
         “You, my friend, are it.”
         “Let’s go to New Hope.”
         “If I wanted to be lynched to a fence, I could just as easily find a church. I don’t need your parents.”
         “They’re in Ohio,” he laughs.
         “Wow, an empty house. How high school.”
         “We can eat on the yacht.”
         I nod my approval and turn up the mix CD he has in. Jump cut to ten minutes later and we have become two months earlier. Singing along, my window open and my right foot on top of the rear view mirror. He tries to pull my leg back in, save his prize from getting a scratch on it. Whenever he pays a little too much attention to my innocent lounging, grabbing at me, I make like we’re careening off the road into some Chinatown bazaar or group of Phillies fans scarfing cheese steaks. Complete with metal twisting, screaming Asian, and irate Philadelphian sound effects.
         Slower song, my favorite song, comes on. Realization. I made this CD.
         “Serious. How have you been?” I ask, choking it out. My throat swells with the past. The ghosts of what we should have been seizing the words right out of my mouth.
         “I’m okay, dealing. I graduated a few weeks ago.”
         “That’s right. Congratulations. I should have called.”
         “I know why you didn’t. It’s fine.”
         “I let you go too easily. You know that. It was just-”
         “You couldn’t have saved me. I wanted to get lost. I wanted to be alone. If you have actually been thinking this since, I’m truly sorry. I never-it wasn’t-”
         I put my hand on his wrist, settling him. Letting him just breathe. Oh the things I should have done before.
         “This is us, you know. This verse.”
         “Ty, I’m sorry.”
         “Our pain is the same. You were just further along. If I had listened-”
         “And if I had waited. I understand now. Don’t worry.”
         His eyes dart back to the road. I just want him; he’s still just so far.
         “Are we almost in this shithole town of yours?”
         “We’re close.”
         Speeding the car up, we fall into a silence. I’m just watching him. How his brow scrunches up every time he makes even the slightest turn; how he barely sticks his tongue out whenever he brakes the car.
         “Love the new hair by the way.”
         He runs his shaking hand over his head with an embarrassed half smile. I reach over and stroke his stubbled skull.
         “You always loved guys with shaved heads.”
         "I figured you did this for me.”
         Zoom on the dashboard. It’s late; hell shift guaranteed tomorrow.
         “So you can get me back by eleven, right?”
         “Sure. You still working there?”
         “Scheduling and night manager now.”
         “You’re surviving.”
         “I’m on a salary now. I’m okay. You working on anything right now?”
         “Nope. Nothing planned yet.”
         “Moving for grad school or straight to NYC?”
         “I dunno. It doesn’t matter.”
         When he gets like this, there’s no conversation to have. His family has temporarily beat his name in lights out of his eyes or something.
         Eerie music sets in. Fog billows out around the car, obscuring our vision. Shadows dance behind it, coaxing us to move closer but driving fear deep into our guts. A crack of lightning lights up the sky, revealing an in turmoil American flag, wind flying, rain beating, and...his family’s house.
         Luckily, he drives straight past it, up the back road to the dock.
         We dissolve into us sitting by the railing, eating. Well, I’m eating, he’s staring at this crab rangoon.
         “You anorexic. At least 25 pounds skinnier. Aren’t you going to eat?”
         “Not if it eats me first.”
         He says this with such a sense of dread that it throws me off. I look up, meeting his eyes, and they’re alive again but just so pained. He’s staring at me, into me, straight through me, asking me to respond, but I just don’t get it. I don’t understand. I’m trying to come up with something when his watch, a new addition to his wardrobe since I’d last seen him, goes off. Robot, he gets up and heads to his car.
         I should’ve said something. He’s upset. Squinting, I see him fumbling around in the glove compartment. My shoes - kicked off. My food - finished. I’m up and waiting for him when he gets back.
         Waistlock. He’s not prepared for this. Our old foreplay. On instinct, he slides a leg behind mine and tries to trip me up, but I’m keeping my balance enough. I attempt to get a hold on one of his feet to take him down, but he kicks me off. Fair game. I let him get his shoes off, and then he kills the jeans too. I follow.
         Distant establishing shot. We’re both ready, looking almost identical from this distance. I go low, scrambling for his legs. He stumbles back and falls hard.
         “Sorry, usually you can take that.”
         “You’re stronger than last time.” He’s much weaker. Cool CGI effect showing how big he used to be and how he shrunk, losing his hair in the transformation, paler.
         Quick cut of him attempting a double leg takedown, but I flatten my body out, sprawling so his momentum does nothing. Accidentally, my knee clips him behind the ear. He’s pissed and swings, squarely on the chin.
         I jump back. Zoom into his eyes and he’s hitting everyone else in his life, not me. The slight pain I feel is multiplied and dispersed over the intended.
         They all fly by the lens.
         Mother’s bedtime Bible story. Father’s aggressive games of catch. Brother’s broken relationship, only child to him. Grandma’s refusal to remember his name. Teachers offering clichés, platitudes. Doctors offering silence, stares. False hopes of equality. Oft elusive feeling of love. Acceptance. Hate. Crucified on the chalkboard. So totally alone. Failed audition. Sickness. Talking heads with gutted promises. Death. Ex-girlfriend hacking at her thigh, knowing she’s ugly. Judgment. Believe and he’s in hell. Don’t and he’s worm food. God made a mistake. Head underwater, age 1. Followers made a mistake. Head underwater, age 22. God is a mistake. Head underwater, screaming, drowning. Insufferable onus. Painless descent. He’s striking out for the first time, and it’s all just too late.
         And I see all this. And I understand. And he’s still eyes closed, slaying his demons one punch after another. And I’m inching back, dodging. And we end up over the railing. And we are in the water. Pure. And he’s mine. And he’s dying. And I’m dying because he’s dying. But I’m living. And I’m dying because I’m living.
         Fade to momentary black.
         Interior shot in yacht cabin. Drying off. Bunk bed. Struggling to make one whole out of the jagged pieces we both offer. Tracing his scarred chest, hoping to heal, trying to remember, committing to memory. We sleep. He’s sewn into me on the bed. I will not watch him drown. Not alone.
         Shot of Earth. Camera begins fast zoom. Hemisphere, country, state, city, river, boat, cabin, hands clasped. Morning.
         I’ve set my alarm for nine thirty, enough time to get back to work, but the sun wakes me up as it starts to rise early. I shake him awake and lead him to the dock. He stumbles trying to make the jump from the boat. I’m there.
         We’re watching it rise. I feel the camera behind us; we’re barely distinguishable because of the sunlight filling its frame. Camera briefly zooms into the sunrise only, capturing it’s ugly beauty. Beauty only possible with the disgusting gases capturing the light and creating the colors. Circumstantial beauty.
         Neither of us have taken our eyes off it, mesmerized. I fumble with my hand, trying to find his. We hold on to each other, still watching the limitless ascent over the lake, painting the whole area so we can finally see the road that brought us here, the leviathan unknown in front. We take a step toward each other. Somehow, the sun seems to get even brighter.
         And we went blind.