live on wire

It’s another little house this time, second verse same as the first. The last body is in the bathroom, but lucky for them it’s an ensuite affair. When Paul advances on him, Peter is laughing, but he knows enough to back up. He almost stumbles, slipping on his own bloody footprints. Maybe he expects a kiss; it would be a pretty good backdrop for a kiss.

Paul plants the gun barrel squarely in the middle of his chest. It leaves a pale smudge of residue. Peter takes a few steps backward, still stumbling, and Paul mirrors him – minus the clumsiness, of course, and he never pulls the barrel of the gun away. (Who brings a handgun to their vacation home? This guy, apparently. Maybe he didn’t feel safe, all the way out here.)

Paul lifts his chin and smiles; something like trepidation lights up in Peter’s eyes. “All right, nancy boy, time to spread those legs. We played a game, and you lost.”

“Goddamnit, I did not, I did not, you cheated–”

He backs him up onto the guest bed, and back down onto it – the bedspread is embroidered with little shells, it’s very nice. The pillow slips have monograms. Peter’s eyes are casting about desperately for something, like he’s feigning incredulousness at the very idea; more likely he’s looking for a weapon of his own.

“It’s only cheating when you lose. Four in a row, I get to fuck you. Any way I want, no funny business. If you’d been the one to finish all those dads off, it would be different, but it looks like you just couldn’t manage it. Better luck next time.”

(He’d have let him win. Of that, neither of them has any doubt; this is as much part of the game as what came before, as the bloody messes on the kitchen floor.)

“Fine, fine; just go easy, right?”

“Easy. Sure, tubby, sure, I wouldn’t want to – damage you or anything. Hey, why don’t you go and – you know, lie down. We can work this out. "

Paul’s gloves come off; he drops the gun for a second and he presses him into the mattress, hard; his nails dig in on the side of his neck. He gives him a testing jostle, throwing him down and appreciating the way his head bounces off the mattress. Peter throws his hands up to catch himself, pushing up on his elbows and pulling up his legs like he’s trying to ward off a blow.

“Cut it out, hey! Easy on my skull, Jesus, she really hit me back there.” His voice is half-cringing, half-laughing.

“It was just a love tap, Peter.” (The lady of the house took a swing at his face with an unplugged iron; Paul had knocked her down with it and kicked her until she quit moving.) “There’s no call to be a little bitch about it. Hands in front of your head, please.”

Hands in front of him like he’s handcuffed (and wouldn’t that be fun, they could knock off a couple cops and wriggle into uniform, it’d certainly be something different) and his shorts pulled down, the top of his pale ass just barely visible above his disheveled underwear. Paul gives him a swat as if to say, he’d better hold that pose if he knows what’s good for him, and goes to tie his wrists with his belt. Peter stays put; his breath already coming in uneven bursts.

He reaches around, slides his hand down the crease between Peter’s leg and hip.

Legs apart, sneakers off, pants down. Shirts on; he knows how Peter feels about that belly. But Peter protests anyway, so he jostles him in the back of his soft thigh with a hard knee, and elicits a yelp.

“Quit whining, it’s not going to be that bad. You know what they’d do with a chubby little piece like you, back when I was doing time? They’d shove a dick in that mouth before you could say my dad’s the mayor–”

Two ungloved fingers find his dry hole and twist in roughly; Peter’s cry of complaint is a cut-off moan and he hitches back against him, as if by instinct.

“Bullshit! You never did time!”

“And I’m never going to, either. I was only illustrating a concept. Trying to set the scene.”

Scratching his way in isn’t easy, so Paul takes his time, working close circles inside him and making him cringe with pleasure.

He digs in with three fingers now, starting to stretch him, and works at him with his thumb – just beneath his balls, at first a teasing scrape and then more insistently. He’s already starting to trail pre-come, a slimy white smear on the bedspread, and Paul fucks into him harder with his fingers. His free hand grips at his partner’s soft throat from behind. Peter’s Adam’s apple kicks against his palm, his pulse rattles against his fingertips, and when he says “no” – more of a token protest than an objection, really – he can feel the tendons in his neck shift.

He’s squirming underneath him pretty bad now; in Paul’s opinion, he’s starting to like it. Which makes sense, because the whole thing was his idea, some half-formed masochistic fantasy he’d worked up on their way over. Or it was Paul’s own idea, and Peter is too browbeaten and abused to resist him. Or there’s no game at all, they’re improvising on the fly, or this is what they always do, it’s the only way Peter can get off any more. It’s the only way they can inject some kind of basic sensation into a lifeless and loveless existence, and the dead families are just elaborate gay foreplay. Peter’s the gay one, after all, or actually it’s probably Paul, wouldn’t you think, since he’s so keen on this –

Paul pulls out for a moment to give his dick a charitable tug and Peter arches against him so hard he has to shove him back down. He can feel his cock and balls spasm under his hand; by way of apology he gives them a punishing squeeze and trails back his come-slick fingers to circle around his hole again. Another teasing, scraping touch, before his hands go up to his hips (a little indecent, given where they’ve been) and Paul makes as if to rearrange him again, just right.

“Are you going to do it, or what?” he says, but his bravado’s undercut a little by his voice cracking. He sounds like he’s about to cry.

“We’ve got plenty of time, champ. What’s your hurry?”

“Well, aren’t you going to put it in me? What are you waiting for, the cops to show up?”

“Well, I was going to, but then I had a better idea.” He releases his grip on his neck and taps him on the hip with the gun.

Peter thrashes. “Oh, hell, no, no– you can’t really want to–”

“Keep still, tubby, or I’ll shoot your left nut off. This is how I want to play, all right? Hold very still.”

“Jesus Christ, are you insane–”

Peter starts to cry again, this time in earnest. His ass must be hurting like crazy, but he doesn’t tighten up or try to bring his knees together; he knows better than that. The gun barrel slides in just fine, hitching where he’s still dry inside and not slicked up with his own jizz. Peter quits wriggling and panting like a $20 hooker and freezes, just freezes, a sob caught in his throat. The hard metal’s not quite cool yet, probably. Paul pictures his face, his scrunched-up eyes and his smooth cheeks burning red.

After the first push in, he draws it out as slow as he can – carefully, carefully, no accidents here – and presses it back in, fucking him with the barrel of it as neatly and kindly as can be imagined under the circumstances. (The shape of it can’t be helped.) Every thrust provokes a little choking sound, and, he imagines, more tears. The sheer weight of it in his hand is kind of doing it for him; it’s something very final.

He turns the handle of the gun a little to un-cramp his forearm, stretches his fingers on the grip, and Peter’s whimpering twists into a thin sharp sob. “Fuck, that hurts–”

“I know, I know. How do you expect it to be memorable without some kind of forfeit?”

“Please–”

Peter’s descended so far into weeping and twitching that Paul almost doesn’t notice – one deep twisting thrust and he comes all over his own shirt. He seems just as surprised by it as Paul does.

“You came from that? You can’t be serious–” Paul laughs against his shoulder; Peter sniffles uselessly and buries his face against the bedspread.

The gun comes out with a sick slippery ease, probably unfireable at this point, and Paul follows in after it with an old-fashioned jackhammer fuck; he can feel something inside of Peter yield a little too much and thrusts harder, faster, just business. He comes so hard and fast he practically forgets who he is.

It’s a nice thing, but it can’t last.

When they’ve come apart again Peter is a shaking mess beneath him, still-cooling come marking the backs of his thighs. Paul presses his mouth to the sweaty nape of his neck; he can taste gunpowder and a little ghost of how iron tastes. There’s blood welling in his own mouth – he must have bitten his own cheek.

He forcibly turns Peter’s head to get a look at him; Peter looks wrecked, little blood vessels broken under his eyes, spit on his lips. His eyes are bright; they’re fixed on Paul’s.

Paul spits on his shoulder, and kisses him on the cheek. Peter’s damp mouth twitches into a smile.

*

Paul washes his hands in the bathroom, steps over the corpse with the cracked-open head; Peter turns the tap for him with stiff gloved hands, and the cold water washes it all away. They leave the sink still running.