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No one knew what it was, and no one knew whether it was contagious: one night, after a bad gig and a worse after party, Graham just fell into his bunk and never got up since.
The band members, manager and driver each had their theories that circulated, entered bouts of panic, and sometimes denial, before approaching the situation pragmatically again. The most popular theory was food poisoning, given Graham’s early emetic fits, but that could easily be attributed to the excessive drink that the guitarist was by now known for.
Graham had been in and out of illness since Damon had met him. His attendance was poor in school, and when in school he split his time between class and the nurse’s office. The topic occasionally infiltrated Damon’s rare and precious family dinners, his parents at some point growing fonder of the withdrawn younger boy than their own son. He eats so much dirt, they would argue, he should have built up a strong immune system by now.
Their manager and mentor at the time, Chris, was bonkers. He insisted on paying the band in acid, even after years of constant and uneasy refusal, to the point where Damon wondered whether not malicious intents lurked under the grin. When he showed them his party trick, which was to catapult himself across the tour bus to crash on the windshield when the driver slammed the breaks, Damon decided to never entrust him with anything ever again. He was forty-eight years old.
Him and the band sans Graham embarked on the Didsbury Dozen, which had garnered more excitement amongst them than the actual gig. On their way to the fourth pub on the list, Damon felt so suddenly estranged from the people he knew like the back of his hand that he made an excuse about having to do his laundry, and left his company for the relief of cool night air, and silence. He realised later, when he actually was sitting in front of the washing machine, watching his clothes spin lifelessly in the 24-hour laundromat lighting, that something dark and depthless was making itself known inside of him.
It felt perverse to carry perfumed clothes through alleys that stank of piss, and he kept looking over his shoulder in paranoia, as though some scum of the earth would leap to snatch the cleanliness from him. And when he finally entered his house the rickety bus, he was attacked with another cacophony of sweat and white blood cell conglomeration, and he understood how pointless it was for humans to seek cleanliness when they really were a filthy creature.
At least it was silent, allowing Damon’s ears to ring quietly. He wasn’t exactly drunk but he was making a conscious effort of walking down the narrow corridor very normally, and the beer was a discomfort in his belly. The dark oscillated in his vision as he squinted his eyes at this hidden white lane there in the corner… human-sized, with wrinkles and other colourful things on it, sheets and clothes… sheets, yes, the bed. That was his bed.
Across it, Graham had drawn the curtains around his bunk, distancing himself from the rest of society like an animal does when preparing to die. Rolling his eyes at the dramaticism, Damon pulled the curtain.
Out of the four, Graham received the weirdest fan mail. Lacy underwear, suicide notes, fans’ nude photographs, disturbing portraits. All I want is a pack of fags, he would moan jokingly. Graham was nothing if not a hoarder, however, and it is always tricky to claim the type attention you receive has nothing to do with your character.
He slept in the midst of it like it was funerary offerings, and his photo of Audrey tacked on the wall by his head, watching over him like a saint.
He had wound himself up very tightly with the covers, like they were bandages. From the whole of his body only his head seemed not to need this medical attention, though from his parted lips his breath came very shallow and occasional, and whistled slightly as a sign of a particular bacterial infection that Damon tried to remember form biology class.
What the hell was it- whooping cough? Something like mortadella- bortadella… bordel… pertussis. Bordetella pertussis.
He immediately seethed in anger for recalling. Like his brain was not occupied by his own thoughts, or thoughts for his own sake, but for Graham’s. Like his brain had long ceased to be his but had become a carrier. Save him from jumping out the window. Clean up after his puke. Cradle him when he cries. Kiss him when he’s soft and wanting and-
Damon tore the covers down to Graham’s feet, and almost screamed at what he saw.
Graham was lying there straight and stiff as a solider, yet his hands were settled on top of his thighs, soaked in blood. The shiny coat of fluid was so thick it looked like he was wearing red gloves, but the odour of rust was choking. His shorts were blotched with it as well, as were his white sheets, along with sweat and other strange fluids.
Damon was never good with blood, especially if pulled from the elbow to wrist area. It made him feel faint – possibly rooting from a blood test gone wrong he experienced as a teenager, where the nurse hit his vein in a weird way and the blood spurted from the puncture like a fountain.
His mouth formed the shape of Graham’s name, though it came out as an abstract sound. He leaned in closer though it was the last thing he wanted to do, to examine his friend’s limp body: the moonlight caught the sweat on his skin so brightly that his pearly margins blurred in the darkness, so that Damon was suddenly convinced he was dealing with an apparition. With shaking fingers, he touched the edge Graham’s arm, felt the steam come off it, but also the flesh underneath - it was rubbery to the touch, not what a real human felt like. Not what Graham felt like.
The light touch made the younger man groan and recoil, his already large eyes appearing huge in his sunken face when they cracked open.
‘What happened?’ Damon hissed. ‘You’re bleeding everywhere, are you okay?’
Graham swallowed with difficulty, and then his cracked lips opened. He beckoned Damon closer and muttered in his ear, ‘Ian Appleyard…’
‘What?’
‘He gave me to eat…’
Damon first heard the word “disordered” in the context of an individual from his parents: his eating is disordered, was the precise phrase. It sounded particularly mysterious given that it was applied to his closest friend, like a piece of unfunny gossip. The cigarette ash, the raw potatoes, the live insects, the tips of felt pens. Like there was something in them he needed internalised. Damon found it more cool than he did weird as a child, courtesy of the sort of humour that appeared in children’s programmes no doubt, but it must have disturbed him in some kind of way given that he occasionally still jolted awake from dreams about Graham’s small round mouth devouring a handful of worms, catching on his broken front tooth. They were almost racy, in the nothing realm between an odd dream and a nightmare.
They never discussed it. They never discussed his later aversion to food in general, that he disguised under the concept of vegetarianism and later veganism. Not even when the fainting and the anemia ensued; it was only bound to happen to someone like Graham, an extra little annoying trait of his the band – Damon - had to deal with.
‘Did you eat your hands…?’
The second the suspicion left his lips, it materialised. His shaken mind produced nightmarish images, bloodied front teeth, translucent strips of skin being peeled from the flesh slowly, salty tears rolling inside a chewing mouth, hot, whimpering, helpless. As much as Damon wanted to pull the covers up again and puke out the door, you couldn’t let an anemic bleed. With a hand over his mouth, Damon fetched one of Graham’s t shirts (his favourite red one with the blue stripe) that was lying about on the bed and started soaking up the blood with it.
Sweat started gathering at Damon’s temple at the effort as he started getting at the bottom of the wounds. Their fingers had to be interlaced, Graham’s long, bony ones slipping between Damon’s in a strange, unnecessary union, lathering them with his blood. Graham himself was totally delirious, with fever, with blood loss, perhaps the Bordetella pertussis had made its way into his brain, and he was prattling on about a rotten apple in a back garden, sweet like a little songbird.
After what seemed like hours of scrubbing out blood, Damon discovered the cuts at Graham’s fingertips. They were fresh enough that when he squeezed, a new wave poured out. Did he get carried away gnawing at his fingernails? No, these cuts were like slashes, like he slid a thick razor across them, and around the opening was a crusty substance that smelled like adhesive.
Damon did retch, then. He ran to the driver’s seat and threw up out of the window, hands shaking and teeth chattering. It was only one heave, and it was watery, like no food had been in there for a while, or like his body was trying to expel something much more ingrained in him.
In the delirium he had his epiphany: the horizontal slashes, the superglue residue… Graham had cut his fingers on his guitar strings.
Relief has an interesting way of being externalised with anger. Parents yell at their toddlers for wandering off but in fact they are overcome with relief. Anger at what? At making one worry? At the prospect of getting harmed? Why not simply revel in this much more euphoric feeling that is relief, why seek the ugly and hurtful? It is one of those things that simply makes no sense.
Anyway, upon realising Graham had not self-cannibalised himself, Damon was furious. ‘Clear out this crap,’ he growled, and started swiping all the fan mail from his bed. A drawing of him caught his attention, a drawing of him hugging Graham from behind, probably copied off from a magazine photoshoot. It slid under the bunk and disappeared.
Noticing the ruckus belatedly, Graham cried out like his limb was being torn off.
‘Disgusting, Graham. You’re disgusting.’
Sweltering in his own sweat and dirt and blood and pus and god knows what else- The filthiest fucking-
With gritted teeth, he picked another one of Graham’s favourite t shirt and dabbed it in water from the little sink in the bus. He was determined to soak up all the grime from his friend into his favourite item, and then rub it in his face, or shove it in his mouth, or something. But when Damon pulled Graham up by the arms into a sitting position and started wiping down his arms, the younger man cringed away. ‘No. Don’t do this.’
‘You need to be cleaned.’
‘No, stop,’ he whined, voice higher and more pathetic than normal, that only fuelled Damon’s anger further. Graham disliked being touched in normal circumstances, and Damon only imagined the fever made his skin unbearably sensitive. But that was life, Graham: sometimes you need to do things you don’t want to do.
‘Where the fuck is everyone,’ Damon muttered to himself half-deliriously, having grabbed Graham’s thin thigh with one hand and wiping it with the other. It bloomed red under his fingers. ‘There when it’s all fun and parties but they disappear when it fucking matters and I’m left to deal with this wanker all alone like I’m his bloody mum. I should be resting, why don’t they ever fucking let me rest? It’s my fault for trying… I should just leave them by themselves, see what happens. I don’t fucking care anymore.’
When Damon became aware of himself again, he saw he had basically climbed on top of Graham, legs astride the younger man’s narrow hips, his skin rubbed flush and soft. The cuts on his fingers kept closing and opening uselessly, a mirror of Graham’s nature. Bleed out or heal?
Registering the return of Damon’s wit into his body, Graham wriggled beneath him. ‘It hurts,’ he said, so softly it rendered Damon speechless for a few seconds. He felt a little lost at the sudden proximity, the big brown eyes staring right into his, at his small, full mouth, his skittish breath. He wasn’t sure if the redness of his eyes was due to the illness or the attempt to hold back tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ Damon murmured, but didn’t stop. He swiped under the limp fringe, down his nose, his slim neck, past the jutting collarbones, watching Graham scrunch up his face. He used to find it childish that he relied so much on his facial expressions to communicate, but then complaints were not exactly acceptable in his family. Speech wasn’t, in general, which was a huge rift from how things were in Damon’s home.
Besides, Graham so beautifully communicated pain with his face.
Damon tugged at the soaked hem of his shirt. ‘Can you take this off now?’
‘You can’t see,’ Graham whispered, sounding quite shaken. His eyes darted all across Damon’s face, like he was searching for something in there. He circled his wrist with a big hand, which Damon could not decide if it was burning or freezing, and he felt it shake.
It broke his heart a little, but more than anything it gave him a weird rush. Graham was made to be looked at from above; or rather he craved to be debased, choosing his place always physically lower than his partner, as he was taught from his army-centric childhood. The elegant curve of his eyebrows, his wide, depthless eyes, his feathery eyelashes, his plush mouth, you could admire it all from up here. ‘It’s just me, Gra, come on,’ Damon said, suddenly breathy. Feeling strangely ill – with the stink of blood? With desire? - he cradled Graham’s limp head and pressed his lips against his damp hair. ‘Would you rather someone else do it?’ he murmured against it, and his fingers splayed down his nape, tangling themselves in the fine hairs there. ‘I can call Alex.’
Forget “please”: those were Graham’s set of magic words. He tentatively unfurled himself from Damon’s embrace and stuck his arms up like a very ashamed offender.
Graham was a very shy person, especially when it came to nudity. Touching thirty, he seemed not to know what to do with it. He would go down to the beach with his clothes on and remove them strictly if he wanted to swim, that he usually found an excuse to avoid.
But he was beautiful. Damon didn’t find the male form particularly attractive, but there was something about Graham’s body that always excited him viscerally - perhaps the disbelief that someone like this, broad-shouldered yet narrow-waisted, lithe and pale and smooth like a marble sculpture, could exist, juxtaposed with the fact that he stood right in front of him.
Slipping the shirt off him, Damon wondered if Graham knew who was doing this to him. So far he had shown no signs of recognising Damon for who he was, his Piscean mind caught up in its own landscape of orchards and little boys force-feeding him apples, and being violent with him.
He tossed the shirt to the side, and froze. Something truly perplexing was occurring onto the body below him. It looked as though one side – the left, where the heart was – had sunken in, or atrophied in some way, while the other had retained its familiar, smooth form, peaks and slopes of svelte flesh catching the milky moonlight. Damon brushed a feathery hand at the beads of sweat that studded the hollow of his throat, watching for Graham’s sweet inhale.
He ran his hand lower, with the air of handling a revered object. Graham mewled quietly when he brushed over a nipple, hardened in the cool air, let a little mmph when he grazed his sides, but otherwise stood very still, his eyes locked with Damon’s. Graham’s skin was the wrong tone, his veins too blue; Damon could tell even in the darkness. The hair that dusted his chest was thicker, in fact it extended downwards, a trail across the abdomen, that didn’t exist the last time Damon saw him like this, a few weeks ago after Glastonbury. And his ribs, protruding only on the one side, almost like they were gills… Damon could not resist scraping his short nails down, feeling the peak and trough, peak and trough, and the grime that accumulated into his nailbed.
Graham gasped, deliciously sensitive. He opened his trembling lips, from which Damon was hungry to hear some kind of plea, some kind of dirty command, some kind of pet name, like the ones that slipped out when he was dumb with pleasure. ‘I feel… the maggots… inside of me,’ he said instead, chillingly. ‘I’m so cold.’
Despite himself, Damon remained carefully composed. They were almost things Graham would say at times, when particularly pissed and particularly depressed – a mechanism for creating a halo of isolation amidst a party. Damon pressed his lips against his friend’s forehead, licking the salt off his lips slowly when he pulled back. ‘You’re boiling,’ he reprimanded. ‘And…’ hard. He looked down at the younger man’s crotch, to see a straining tent in his shorts. A perverse afterthought signalled that he was much larger than what Damon remembered, or perhaps more excited he’s ever been. Damon’s wide eyes flicked back to meet dark ones. ‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘The monster is here, Damon.’ The sound of his name startled him into a weird sobriety. Like some kind of omniscient, higher being was speaking rather than his friend, a voice from above. But then Graham’s hot lips were next to his ear, and chills travelled down Damon’s entire body as he whispered, ‘It needs to have a bit of your blood. Can it?’
‘What monster?’
‘You know,’ Graham urged, perhaps too shy to speak it. He was writhing slightly beneath Damon, as though something was crawling on him where his friend couldn’t see.
What monster? There were many to choose from. The literal ones, perhaps; Damon’s childhood hecklers or those who beat him up after school, or the spiritual ones when Graham would suddenly burst into tears in the quiet of Damon’s room and draw maniacal evil demons on his sketchpad.
He could remember most of them, his impressionable adolescent mind shocked with such repulsive imagery from a younger, more socially agreeable boy. He remembered the terrifying pressure of the pencil, engraving multiple pages at a time, the crazed eyes, the mangled teeth, the defecation, the blood – there was always blood. A knife, a pair of scissors, with sick ecstasy stabbing the blood out of another, equally horrifying fiend.
Who were they?
Graham was leaning his entire weight against Damon now, burning forehead burrowed in the crook of his neck, wet breath teasing down his chest, eyelashes brushing his skin with each dazed blink. Damon could see the individual knobs of his spine, stretching against delicate skin like something about to sprout. Like the hills he was talking about, the orch-
Ian Appleyard. An old monster from the past, Graham’s own bully: it all made sense now. Years ago, before fame or substance, when they whispered confessions to each other from an emotional need to push closer and not from accident, Graham had told him his neighbour Ian had forced a rotten apple into his mouth, until he felt the fruit flies tickle his throat and the maggots wriggle on his gums.
Damon gasped when he felt something cold and metallic against his wrist. He looked down, down Graham’s goosefleshed body, down to his bloody hands, which unfurled spare guitar strings from their circular clutch. The younger man looked up at him again, though with his head on his shoulder he could not see his eyes, only feel his wet lips against his neck.
He straightened the thick strings against the soft inside of Damon’s wrist. ‘Can it…?’
Damon’s mouth went completely dry. The monster wanted his blood, and he was suddenly very aware of it pumped with vitality down his limbs, making his hands tingle with the want to touch. He heard himself whisper: ‘No, no, no. Not there.’ With shaking hands he lead Graham’s icy ones to his other shoulder, on the junction with his neck.
Graham sighed high and relieved, a noise that went straight to Damon’s cock. He slid Damon’s shirt off, suddenly having the mind not to cause further soilage, or simply aching to see his friend naked. With hazy eyes Damon caressed down Graham’s arm when he repositioned himself between his legs, slightly excited at the attention. Then the younger man started sawing at his skin with the strings.
‘Ah- fuck- what-’ Damon gasped, vision going black then white with pain. It was an odd sort of pain, a sweet pain that lodged itself deeper and deeper into his flesh. It made his entire arm bloom in pins and needles, unfeeling of the stream of hot blood pouring down from the wound.
And then Graham started kissing him. Sloppy, open-mouthed kisses across his collarbone, shy licks up the side of his neck, little whimpers in his ear. Damon sighed and leaned back against the wall, tangling his hand in Graham’s soft hair, not pushing, not pulling, just resting there.
It was not something they had not done before, but Damon did not remember it ever feeling so… what was the word? Worshipful. Like feelings of adoration were involved. It made him feel an odd sort of way, dizzy and hot. More turned on than ever.
Then Graham started licking at his cut in earnest. He would bury his whole face in it if he could, Damon could feel the pressure of his nose and the scrape of his bottom teeth, his arm bruise under Graham’s iron grip.
‘Oh baby,’ he suddenly moaned between desperate slurps, low and loud, and Damon had never heard him like that. He almost rolled his eyes at the sound, something about his usually restrained friend letting himself go like that felt weirdly precious and filthy, even if he had to bleed for it.
They were both panting lightly when Graham initially dislodged himself from Damon’s shoulder, leaving it tingly and sensitive even to the lightest breath of air. He made the mistake of glancing down at his body, to see Graham’s bloody fingerprints all over his chest and a rivulet of blood trickle down his arm.
‘Bloody hell,’ he groaned weakly, under a new spell of nausea. The smell was getting to him now – sweat and blood and the smell of Graham’s- of Graham’s precum.
His friend had straddled his clothed thigh and had begun grinding on it tentatively, like suddenly he was not beyond shyness. His eyes, ever empathetic, peered closely at Damon’s face as it took on an ashen sort of colour.
With their eyes locked, Graham collected spit at the front of his mouth, then let it drop viscously on his hand.
It drew a sound out of Damon, between a whine and a groan, and he was the first to break eye contact, letting his jaw drop on his other shoulder.
‘It has numbing powers, like a mosquito…’ Graham was saying, though Damon could hear his soft voice distantly, as though he was in the next room. Much more insistent was the feeling of his wet hands lathering the spit over his open cut, which made Damon twitch and bite his lip in attempts to keep his voice down. ‘And healing powers,’ Graham continued, then licked a fat, slow stripe over the cut, ‘because I love you.’
Damon groaned and tossed his head back. He realised belatedly that Graham was cupping him over his jeans, stroking gently as he sucked slow hickeys on the spot below his pierced ear.
‘Oh yeah, you love me?’ Damon breathed, his streak of meanness eager to spill out where it was most likely to hurt.
Had Graham ever said that to him before? Most likely, but probably in a situation where neither of them would remember, much like this one. Though at the moment Damon had doubts he was dealing with Graham at all.
‘Yes, so much,’ Graham, or whatever it was posing as Graham, whispered against his ear, then continued lapping hotly down his neck and past his cut and to the soft inside of his elbow, short, insistent licks, like an animal far inferior to humanity. ‘So much, more than anyone.’
It would be too kind to say Damon was not sweating at this odd character his closest friend was exhibiting. How many times had he fantasised of something like this? Graham ingesting some sort of love potion that made him crazy for him, or being placed under a dark spell like so many of the supernatural folk stories he enjoyed. Damon was rock hard and red down to his chest, and his head was confused with questions, mostly was he about to be eaten alive? ‘How?’
With lazy hands, he steadied the apparition in the shape of his friend before him, noting only vaguely that his wounded shoulder indeed had been absolved of pain, only a sweet soreness was left behind. His hands circled far further than normal around Graham’s upper arms, in fact his body had grown nearly unrecognisable, perhaps closer to what he had been like in hospital with his first bout of anemia.
Graham was panting with arousal, hair all standing on end, pupils totally blown and undecided on which part of Damon’s body to settle on - but a function telling of a live person and particularly fundamental to Graham was missing, and that was the flush. Damon didn’t know what sustained Graham’s raging erection if not for blood, but his questions scattered when his friend slotted his crotch against his and rolled.
‘Oh-’
Damon was quick to grab at Graham’s hips and direct their movement, he relished on the feeling of his cool skin against his fingers, of how easily he could push him down. He established a punishing pace from the beginning, enough to make Graham try to pull back, then whine and writhe when he couldn’t. Damon was moaning open-mouthed against his shoulder, using him purely for his own pleasure. The jeans provided a delicious if not painful pressure against his cock, he knew at some point he would need to unzip them, but then Graham locked his arms around his neck, burying his face in his chest, closer than they had ever been before.
He had laid his cheek against the top of Damon’s hair, mouth leaking sounds of pain and pleasure, until Damon realised he was trying to form words.
‘Next time,’ he was panting. ‘I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.’ The words alone raised a new wave of arousal in Damon, starting from the top of his head to his thighs. Oh, he was trying to prove his love. ‘I’ll let you push inside… and hold me down… and pump me full of your cum…’
‘Oh you deserve far worse than that,’ Damon replied, surprised and slightly embarrassed at the ruggedness of his voice. He sharply pulled the short hairs on Graham’s nape to look at his face, watching how his nose scrunched with thin pain. ‘I’ll have you locked in my room,’ he continued breathlessly, ‘tied on the bed… so I can return from the studio and let all my frustrations out on you. Spit on you like the dog you are. And slap that pathetic look off you. You’ll be my little toy to do whatever I want with.’
Graham keened loudly, pitch rising at the end for a particularly pornographic sound. Damon felt himself salivate at the thin spurt of precome trickle down his cock, glistening in the dark.
‘Yeah, you like that?’
Graham nodded frantically, anticipatory little mewls escaping his mouth as Damon finally unzipped his jeans, unable to take the pressure anymore.
His cock sprung out of his shorts to slap against his belly, angry and wet. He heard the little hitch in Graham’s breath at the sight, swatted his bony hands when they tried to grab him.
‘No, you don’t get to touch me anymore.’
Graham didn’t have the time to look distraught for too long as Damon gripped them both in his hand, and squeezed tightly at the base.
Both moaned loudly and joined sweaty foreheads together, watching with wide-eyed wonder at the copious precum spilling out over Damon’s hand, between his fingers as he pumped them frantically.
He then rubbed his palm over Graham’s tip, making sure to press his calluses there.
The younger man arched his back like he got zapped. ‘Day-’
Oh what Damon wouldn’t give to see the flush burn his cheeks, to grip the lean flesh of his waist, to dip his fingers in his navel just to watch him shudder. There hardly seemed to be anything of him left.
A string of wet words that sounded like Day and please spilled out of Graham’s lips.
‘I’ll have your hands tied,’ Damon panted, looking up to check on Graham’s expression, slack mouth red with smudged blood and glistening with saliva. Damon’s eyes rolled a little at the sight, his hand stuttered. ‘A-and I’ll make you come over and over until you cry and beg me to stop.’
‘You’ll ruin me,’ Graham gasped, voice breaking at the edges.
‘Yeah, I’ll ruin you, I’ll ruin you for everyone else,’ Damon drawled, unable to take his eyes off his friend, magnetised by the way his words seemed to affect him physically. He brought his lips very close to his own, swallowing all his little sounds and gasps. ‘You won’t be able to think of anyone other than me by the time I’m done with you. No one will do it for you like I do.’
‘You should p-put a collar on me…’ Graham panted hotly in his mouth, ‘so everyone knows I’m yours.’
That’s mainly what did it for Damon: the words, the shakiness and vulnerability in them, the confession of a very deeply buried desire laid bare. It only took a flick of his wrist and he came in sudden, stunted bursts, brows knitted, mouth hanging open in a silent moan.
When he opened his eyes again, slow and glazed with the aftershocks, he found Graham staring at him wide-eyed, at the verge of orgasm, biting his lip so hard it should’ve bled, pumping himself with the desperation of an ashamed teenager. When Damon let out a little post-coital, husky chuckle, Graham’s eyes rolled over, and he spilled in his frantic hand.
The thought that Graham came by looking at his face had Damon feeling a very intense, personal sort of way, and he was about to tease him for it - or say anything, really, that would distract from the loud beating of his heart.
When he looked at Graham he lost his words though, catching his friend in his predicament of whether to lick his hands clean of... Maybe he had briefly forgotten about Damon’s existence, because it felt very private when he finally darted his tongue out to lap at his fingers, sucking with red lips at the tips of them for blood, still hungry for any kind of nutritious matter. Damon was completely taken for a few seconds, marvelling at the fine eyelashes casting shadows against his cheekbones, the thin shape of his face. He looked almost like a girl from this angle, like Audry Hepburn herself, although Damon never brought himself to say it because there was no telling how someone like Graham would take it: either as a magic compliment to solve all his self-esteem problems, or it would ruin his hero for him forever.
‘Don’t fuckin’ puke on me you bloody-’ someone cried loudly from right outside – Alex?
All the blood Damon had left finally rushed back to the correct extremities and he jumped up at the sudden ruckus by the door.
The others were back, shouting and groaning nonsense at each other, shattering the quiet indoor peace. Damon pulled Graham’s curtains shut instinctually, then jumped in his own bed. He bundled up with blankets to hide his nakedness, the cum on his thighs, the bleeding cut, then drew his own curtains only partially, to avoid suspicion just as the other climbed up one by one.
The bus tipped from side to side at the intruding weight.
‘Isthat Damon’s laundry,’ Dave drawled, then laughed. ‘Thought the wanker was lying.’
‘While you lot drink your faces off I’m gonna do me laundry,’ it was someone’s voice made deep and stupid, vowels all rounded like he was talking through a morsel. Was that an impression of him? Damon’s eyes were closed, but he rolled them anyway.
‘Smells like piss, though. Like- fucking…’
‘Like someone died in here.’
‘How’s Gra?’
From the footfalls Damon could tell Alex had walked into the space between his and Graham’s bunks. He heard the curtains rush open.
Complete silence from Alex, while Chris and Dave were still faffing about. ‘Is he dead?’ Dave asked haphazardly, and finally joined Alex by Graham’s bed. A sudden, blood-curdling scream.
Damon had never heard Dave scream before, never with such panic, such fear for his life itself. Monster, they were crying, monster.