Chapter eight - Gerard's britches are evil

tongues on the sockets of electric dreams

where the sewage of youth drown the spark of my teens

and I knew that the lights of the city were too heavy for me

-- -- -- --

"Common sense is like deodorant. The people who need it the most never seem to use it."

-- -- -- --

Tobacco mingled with rum and cotton was starting to become one of my favourite smells.

It was a hideous combination. I hated smokers, I hated chewers, I hated rum. But the smell was familiar. My head was blurry and I kind of felt like my brain was full of sawdust though, so I couldn't pinpoint why it was so familiar.

Things started to come together in my mind, and vague memories of getting spectacularly inebriated seeped into focus. I groaned and buried my face in my pillow, curling up into a ball. My legs brushed against another body and I jumped, but when soft arms wrapped around my waist and the body curled closer to mine I sighed and relaxed.

I remembered drinking late into the night, so late that the sun had started to rise and white light had started to creep under the door. I supposed that was why I still felt kind of tipsy, and why I wasn't backing away from the stranger in my arms.

"Mm," the other person mumbled. I couldn't tell if it was a noise of discomfort or contentment and I was too groggy to ask. "Frank."

I groaned. "Hwhat?" I had intended to ask who I was talking to, but my mouth and my mind weren't coordinating.

"You smell good," the person slurred 

"Who'sit?" I muttered.

"Ge-Gerard," he said. "Hm."

"Wait, what?" I mumbled. There was something off about that. Gerard. I didn't like Gerard. I fucking hated Gerard. "Gerard?"

"Frankie?"

"Don't call me that," I hissed. "What happened? Why the fuck am I-" I froze. "Where's my shirt?" I scrambled out of the covers in search for the item, but squeaked in shock and hid back underneath the blankets again when I realised I was just in my underwear. I curled the blankets tightly around me like a shield. In pulling the blankets closer to me, my hand closed around Gerard's jacket, and I flinched and tossed it at him. I buried my face in my hands and shuddered. "Please," I moaned, traumatised. "Please, for the love of god, tell me I didn't sleep with you."

"Well," Gerard said. "I'm dressed. 'Cept for my jacket."

I wasn't sure whether the dominating emotion was relief or stress from the fact that I was still in my underwear. I made a weird uncomfortable noise to get my point across.

Gerard passed me my shirt and pants from the floor and I awkwardly pulled them on under the covers, almost strangling myself with my shirt and almost cutting off my dick with Gerard's stupid tight pants in the process. "Why exactly was I naked?" I asked, getting up out of the bed.

"We were drunk." Gerard shrugged. "I don't know." He flipped over the blankets and tilted his head to the side, apparently checking the covers for something. "Well, the sheets are clean."

With a sound quite close to a gag, I realised what he was checking for. "Well, that's a nice plus," I said.

"Yeah," Gerard laughed.

"Well, as wonderful as this has been, it feels like there's two hammers beating each other to death in my skull, and I don't think I'm ever getting drunk again."

"Maybe that's best for you."

"Mm," I agreed. "You, on the other hand, couldn't lay off the rum for a day."

"Excuse me?" Gerard said indignantly.

"You know," I said. "You seem to have a pretty intimate relationship with that bottle. I'm just making an observation. Perhaps you're a little too dependent on it."

"I just like to drink sometimes," Gerard insisted. "We're on a tiny little ship in the very middle of the middle of fucking nowhere. What else am I supposed to do for fun?"

"Ryan?" I suggested.

"Ryan is the one who drained the ship of our main rum supply. Because of him, I'm reduced to my emergency stash."

"Why on earth did you share it with me if it's so special?" I asked, turning to the foggy and scratched mirror on Gerard's wall to straighten out my shirt.

"Dunno," Gerard said, irritated. "I'd never seen you drunk, I hoped you'd be a fun one."

"You're a dumb drunk," I said, fastening my top button. "Hell," I hissed when I caught sight of the purple mark on my throat. "A dumb drunk who ruins my life by giving me a stupid kissing bruise. Thanks a lot."

"Sorry," Gerard said uncomfortably, raising his hands as if in surrender. "Jesus, I must have been pretty damn drunk to make a move on you."

"Thanks again," I muttered.

"You're welcome," Gerard said cheerily, patting me on the shoulder. "I'm having breakfast. Wanna come with?"

"No," I snapped. "I fucking hate you."

"Right." Gerard paused. "Never speak of this again?"

"Fucking deal."

--

Gerard was inebriated once again before midday. I think it was safe to say that the whole experience would just be washed out of his brain with rum by the end of the day.

I, on the other hand, was having much more trouble getting the sickening image of Gerard kissing me out of my mind. With every hour of the day that passed, pieces of last night came back to me in more detail each time. All the weird things Gerard had said about 'the scorpion child' came flooding in. "You're my key."

I shuddered. This was some creepy shit. I'd known that Patrick had been right the whole time; Gerard was without a doubt completely delusional. But I wanted to find out what was behind his insane beliefs. What did he mean, I was special? Just because I had some stupid birthmark it didn't mean I was the saviour of the world. I remembered the light and hope in Gerard's eyes when he spoke about me, and started to worry a little that he really thought I was some sort of god.

Whether it was that or not, Gerard had this preconceived notion that I was going to unlock something important for him, and there had to be something backing that up. I wanted to know where the hell he was getting these ideas from, and it was consuming me, but I forced it down. I tried to forget about it for the time being. The important thing right now was that we were docking the ship at The Cove soon, which apparently meant more alcohol and a much wider variety of prostitutes to choose from.

The Cove seemed to be some sort of pirate haven where back alley transactions could be made in broad daylight, no questions asked. That explained the slaves and hookers I'd seen hanging around last time we had been there with Patrick.

Everybody was very eagerly awaiting having access to alcohol again. Even though it had only been two days, everyone seemed to be going off the rails. I felt pretty pleased that I wasn't as dependent on alcohol as everyone else, and I wondered how you could even get yourself into the sort of state where you can barely go a couple of days without liquor. I supposed that it was like Gerard said. Other than Ryan, there wasn't really much to do on the ship.

--

I was curious. That was my excuse. Curiosity.

It wasn't like I had a couple of coins in my pocket just in case. It wasn't like I was actually considering it.

It was just that- if you weren't a drinker, there really was absolutely nothing left to do on board, save for hanging out of the captain's bedroom window by your ankles and scraping barnacles off the hull. I wasn't allowed up on deck anymore since the little incident where I pulled the wrong rope and we nearly crashed into quite a scary collection of jagged rocks. I couldn't mess around with Dewees (even I had taken to calling him that by now) because he was miserable as fuck without his liquor; I couldn't just sit and eat stale, mealworm-infested biscuits because Patrick had drained our food supply with his compulsive snacking. Not only were we out of rum, we were out of stale biscuits and precious shrivelled citrus fruits.

We were supposedly going to reach The Cove in a couple of hours, according to Dewees, but I didn't really take the information in. Last time he told me our estimated time of arrival was 'a couple of hours', it had taken an entire night before we were even remotely near the place we had been aiming for.

I was bored as all hell, and I had a couple of spare coins in my pocket for no particular reason. I stumbled awkwardly up to Ryan's room (for no particular reason), tripping over my feet a little with the nerves from not doing anything risky or weird at all.

What was I doing? I wasn't really sure myself. I wanted to replace the sickly images of Gerard and me with slightly less sickly images of Ryan and me. I supposed that it would be a slight improvement at least. I didn't hate Ryan. His very presence didn't disgust me. Ryan was good, Ryan would be an okay substitute.

Still, I wished that there was something else I could be doing. It wasn't a big deal, but this wasn't really the way I wanted to lose my virginity.

"Frank!" Dewees squealed, bounding up to me. I'd never heard him squeal before, and it was seriously weird, and a little scary. "Frank, look!"

"What's got you so happy?" I grimaced.

"Look," he insisted, dragging me away from Ryan's room and up onto the deck.

"But I'm not supposed to-"

"Fuck that, we're here!"

And indeed we were. The Cove was in sight, just a couple of hundred yards away. "Does this mean you're going to stop whining?"

Dewees shot me a look. He glared at me for a moment, but then sighed and nodded in admittance. "Yeah," he smiled. "Ah, rum. Man's best friend."

-- -- -- --

hearts in beer jars

girls in bottles

with vinegar down their sides

men bingeing on glass

splinters dosing their oxycontin

i am

a fucking

poetry slut

xoxo