The road made everyone smell the same, alcohol and sweat and a touch of pot.  Jon was laughing in the back seat next to Bean chucking dirty socks at Denis’ head.  He’d made the mistake of leaving his sneakers lying around, and Denis, in the passenger’s seat, grabbed them from the floor littered with old fast food wrappers and chucked them back at Jon’s stomach.

“Asshole,” Denis smirked.

Jon doubled over, feeling a strange sort of triangle-grin split his face.  “Catholic.”

The inside of the car was cramped and looked watery from beer.  Jon felt good.  They were almost in Rochester, if Zito managed to stay not lost for a couple more exits, and Jon spent the rest of the time punctuating the potholes by kicking Denis’ seat.

***

“I’m hungry, let’s go.”

Jon shucked on his leather jacket and crossed the room.  He shook out his sleeves.  The drugs had worn off hours ago and he’d started feeling the twitchy, nervous energy that came the night before a show.  They hadn’t eaten all day.  Zito and Bean ran out earlier that evening and weren’t back yet, and Jon was beginning to wish he’d gone with them to take his mind off tomorrow.  A sloshing in his stomach reminded him of his steady diet of beer, and he grinned at the recent memory of loitering around a gas station as they tried to pool gas money, and watching Denis down a Guinness, the stereotype pleasing.

Denis was lobbing a large, white wiffle ball to himself.  His stance was wide, and he gripped a handle of a pool net in his free hand.

“What the fuck, man.”

Denis glanced over at him, a wicked grin stealing across his face.  “What?”

“Where the hell did you get that from?”

“The pool, idiot.”

“There’s a pool?”

“Across the street, yeah.”

“Not in this hotel, though.”

“No.  They don’t have any baseball bats, either.”

Jon giggled and tried to turn his laugh into something gruffer, more condescending, but couldn’t.  Denis tossed the wiffle ball into the air, waiting a split second for it to drop, then unleashed a violent swing.

There was a crack and then the sharp thwack as the ball ricocheted off the window, square between the parted red curtains.  Jon covered his grin with his hands as if he might lose it.

Denis retrieved the ball and spun it quickly around in his palm.

“Fifty bucks I break that light up there.”

“Fifty bucks for food, come on.”

“Fuck that, call room service or something.”  He swung again and missed the light by a foot.  His pool net, however, caught the end of a lamp and sent it shattering to the floor in two separate pieces.  He looked at the creamy broken shards and laughed, bending his knees a bit and throwing his head back with pleasure.  Jon scratched at the side of his nose and grinned.

“Lemme try.”

“Get your own.”

“Uh, excuse me, but my kleptomaniac skills are not in full swing.  What are friends for?” Jon reached for the pool net, an awful sea green that smelled faintly of chlorine, and held on as Denis tried to tug it back.  “One shot.”

“Get me a beer and she’s all yours.”

They traded off, Denis popping open the cap and taking a long swig while Jon tried to measure the height at which he should lob the wiffle ball to himself.  He was quick, good with his feet, but something about Denis studying his hand-eye coordination made nervous little prickles pop up along his neck.  He heard the klutzy Jew comments before Denis even had to think them.  Jon laughed at himself and tossed the ball, swinging almost blindly.

The light above him made a crinkling, sparking noise and showered down upon the carpeting.  A pocket of darkness was left behind.

Denis cheered, failing to hide his surprise that Jon had actually knocked it out.  He smiled and took a long swig of beer before rising quickly to his feet.

“I’m next.”

Jon handed him the net and took the beer out of Denis’ hands.  He made sure to down a long drink to annoy him.

“Get your own, fucker.”

Jon punched at his arm and went to the mini fridge and brought two cases back with him.  As he shut the fridge door, he heard a glassy popping of two more lights.

By the time Zito and Bean returned, the room was half in darkness and half coated in glass.  Denis and Jon, stumbling around drunk, had the vague notion that shoes might be a good idea unless they wanted to cut up the soles of their feet.  Jon found his half-hidden under the couch.  Denis’ had ended up on a chair in the kitchen.

Zito and Bean were equally wasted as they dumped their coats on the nearest sofa, which, had they been sober, would have recognized was not furniture but in fact the floor.  Bean smelled smoky and relaxed, and Jon hoped they still had some joints somewhere, because the alcohol had only made the room swim a little.  The anxiety of tomorrow was still there.

“We should really,” Zito said, surveying in the room, “complain to the maid.”

“I’m not paying for this,” Bean said.

Denis laughed. He planted the net beside him, standing next to it like some deranged, cocky Irish Moses with his staff.  Jon snorted with the thought and let his head fall against the back of the sofa.  At his feet, empty bottles of beer shone alongside shattered lights.  He was pretty sure there were some nasty dents in the wall, too.  Had their neighbors not been blasting music so loud, Jon was certain someone would have complained about the demolition happening in their own room.

Bean was grinning, walking around the glass and letting it crunch beneath his feet like frozen snow.  He tossed a paper bag into Jon’s lap.

“Food?” Jon said hopefully.  He dug through, expecting to find a greasy sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil.

Bean laughed and headed towards the bathroom.  “If you wanna eat it.”

Denis’ laugh hit a loose, higher octave when Jon unearthed the dildo.  It took Jon a second to realize what Zito and Bean had done, and then it struck him as hysterical too, although his face was burning despite himself.  He made an obscene gesture with it and then chucked it across the room at Denis, hitting him square in the chest with surprising accuracy.

“Thanks Jon, but I know you want to play with it first,” Denis said.  He was drunk, eyes glistening and hard, and he made a show of kissing the toy with an obnoxious smack before hurling it back in Jon’s direction, laughing the entire time.

***

There was a steady thump against the wall that woke Jon up, although he’d never been fully asleep, either.

The music from next door had grown to a pulse that felt like it was emanating from within his own chest.  He could sense it thrum inside his ribs.  His heart rate was up, and he wanted a hit.  He scratched at his bleary eyes and pretended he wasn’t nauseous.  Checked the clock.  He groaned and wandered out of bed into the kitchen, where he found Denis poking around the fridge and scratching at his stomach beneath his black shirt.

“You look like shit, man,” Denis said, not glancing at him once.

Jon shrugged and it made his head vibrate.  “Got anything to drink?”

“Budweiser, Sam Adams, touch my Guinness and I’ll shove it up your ass—”

“No, water.”

Denis looked at him over the refrigerator door.  The light from inside illuminated his face upside-down and lent him a menacing look, like someone who sits too close to a fire.

“Lightweight,” he said, and let the door open for Jon to help himself.

Jon shut the door with his foot instead and poured tap water into a dirty glass that set on the sink.  He rubbed at his temples while Denis leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

“They still fucking?”

“What?” Jon looked up as Denis nodded his head next door.  “Oh.  Uh, yeah.”

“Playing shitty music, too.  God.”  Denis covered his face with his palms and ran his fingers through his hair, sighing loudly.

Every now and then they got like this.  Jon noticed the pattern—days upon days of high-energy, drug-induced mania, lots of jokes scribbled down, half of which didn’t make sense when they all came out of the haze later (“what the fuck was termite balls? why was that funny?”).  All of it eventually settled into a timeless sort of depression, where they realized they were hundreds of miles from home and familiar faces, trying to balance being clever with making asses of themselves on stage and calling it a career.  Denis got moody and sullen, Jon got angry and reticent.  Sometimes they threw things and laughed about it later.

“Want one?”

Jon realized Denis was smoking a cigarette now.  “No.”

Denis shrugged and tossed the crumpled pack on the table anyway.  He inhaled deeply and blew it out slow, his lips pulling into a frown.  Jon watched him carefully, saw the cocky clump of his shirt around his shoulders.

“What?”

Jon shook his head and finished his water, staring at the far side of the rim.  Setting the glass back down on the counter, he wandered into the dark of the living room, observing the damage.  It was still impressive.  Almost all the lights were blown out and there were divots in the walls, like moon craters.  The lamp remained broken on the floor, exactly where it had fallen to its furnishing death.  Jon huffed out a laugh from the back of his throat, wondering at the test of bullshitting they now faced in the morning.

He’d been vaguely aware of Denis circling around the room, too, both of them like dark birds scavenging after a kill, lingering at the corpses of décor.  Suddenly he felt something hard and rubbery press against the small of his back, and he jumped forward, spinning around to see Denis wielding the dildo with a fanatic grin on his face.

“Shit, man,” Jon said.  They must have left it on the sofa.

“What?” Denis laughed and Jon joined him.  Denis waved the thing around like a baton.  It made Jon’s hair stand on end.  The light from the kitchen made Denis look as if he were towering in shadows.  His chest felt compacted.

“You going back to bed?” Denis asked.

Jon stared at him.  After a moment Denis broke eye contact and started looking around the floor as if he’d dropped something.  It made Jon embarrassed, somehow, but bolder, too.

He didn’t have to turn around to know Denis followed him to his room, where his clothes still weren’t folded or washed.  The clothes he’d tried to sleep in now he’d run under the water in the bathroom, then hung up over the shower railing until they dried.  They still smelled.  He’d have to find something somewhat decent to put on for the show later that day.  Or he could just wear whatever shirt didn’t have stains on it and hide the crinkled, reeking parts with his leather jacket—the one Denis mocked him for wearing, doing bad impressions of everyone from James Dean to Fonzie.

The tapping against the wall was still, inexplicably, happening.  Jon rolled his eyes and laughed, the sound catching nervously in his throat.  Denis grabbed him by the shoulders before he could even turn around and started kissing his neck.  Jon’s stomach dropped out.

“Shit, you want to—” Jon swallowed, and even that one automatic body reaction came layered with plenty of suggestions that sent his already aching head reeling.  He turned towards Denis’ body, mashing their chests together, and seized him by the arms.  He didn’t know who started it, but they were kissing each other, actually, seriously, kissing.  Mouths, tongue, teeth kissing.

Jon remembered they were both still drunk, and he concentrated on not throwing up.  Denis dragged his tongue along the length of Jon’s before sucking the tip into his mouth.  Jon moaned, hips bucking, and Denis shoved him down onto his unmade bed, climbing over top of him.

A very detached feeling had settled over Jon, and the notion that this might in fact be a bad idea was slow in coming.  A warm, wet feeling drenched him, a combination of nerves and a hangover and sweat trapped to his skin by his clothes.  His muscles tightened and boiled with heat, but as Denis ripped his pants and underwear down past his thighs he was struck with the coolness of the room’s air, how it shocked the glaze of perspiration on his body.

Jon had his hands pressed palms-down on Denis’ newly bare chest, half to touch him and half to keep Denis from crushing him.  He tried to flip them but Denis dropped his waist on top of Jon’s and grinded him down into submission.  Jon closed his eyes and groaned.  He hoped one of them had closed, preferably locked, the door, but couldn’t remember if they had.

Denis had just snuck his tongue into Jon’s ear when something came beneath Jon and started to try to enter.  Immediately he tensed and squirmed away, moving upward along the bed, his shoulders slick against the sheets.  Denis tightened one hand on his shoulder.  Jon’s eyes shot open, staring up at Denis who was flushed a sloppy, compelling shade of red that Jon found neither attractive nor disgusting, but was stunned by its incongruity nonetheless.  He had the distracting awareness that he was very, very drunk.

“What are you doing?” Jon said.

“What do you think?” Denis rocked against him a little.  Jon hadn’t realized he’d shucked off his pants, too, and he didn’t know if it was for his own sake or some discomfort on Denis’ part that he’d bothered keeping his boxers on.  Jon pictured himself being curious enough to touch him right now, just slide a hand down following that glimmer of sweat-soaked hair and wrap a hand around him.

The back of his eyes hurt.  They felt like ashes burning into his skull.  Then he realized he was sweating right into them, lines of salt gathering on his brows and running down his eyebrows, his nose, gathering above his mouth.

Jon couldn’t see the toy anymore, where it was beneath him and squashed between their bodies, but he felt Denis move it into him again.  This time the tip slipped slightly inside, and Jon yelped, hitting his hands hard against Denis’ shoulders.

“Stop,” he said, rushed.

Denis paused but didn’t move out.  He ducked his head and kissed Jon, rough and possessive, and it made him moan and try to rub against Denis’ stomach.  He’d arched just the right way, and Denis pushed in further.

Jon cursed and froze in panic.  The room seemed to be caving in on him, and all he could see was the looming sheen of Denis’ eyes draining into him.  He knew this was going to happen, he thought, the second he wordlessly agreed and allowed Denis to leave a room covered with glass to a bedroom already a mess with dirty clothes and the lingering smoke of pot.  He knew it.  It was just taking long to… Jon closed his eyes and bit his lip, hard.  Long to adjust.

Denis’ stare was smoldering, and Jon looked at him again long enough to see the thinness of his lips and the slight crookedness of his teeth, the way his nostrils flared when he was trying not to make a sound through his mouth.

“All right,” Jon tried to relax his body.  He didn’t know what the hell they were doing, but he hoped a switch would turn on sometime soon.  He wanted to tell Denis he trusted him, but even drunk he knew that was bullshit.  He didn’t trust him, not always, that’s why he wanted this with him.  He wanted to be pushed and find out.  “All right, go.”

The music from next door was slipping away, all heady synthesizers and drum loops, but Jon found himself trying to chase it back as Denis moved the dildo further inside him.  He panicked, picturing himself tearing open, all the blood, God, how to explain the blood and the broken glass, the holes in the wall?  He pictured himself trying to soak out the sheets in the bathtub the next morning.  Or no, Denis would just tell him to fuck it, throw them out before cleaning came.

It occurred to Jon to wonder if Denis had even bothered to spit on the toy to make it go easier.  He wasn’t sure, just that it hurt.  A lot.  Jon clenched his teeth and Denis kissed his lips, close-mouthed.  Even that tasted musty and dark, sharp and everything like a man.  After a few moments Denis dropped his free hand between Jon’s legs and touched him, and the sudden rush of pleasure almost annihilated the filled, heavy ache that dominated his awareness.

“It’ll be good,” Denis said.  Jon shook and nodded, knowing Denis needed some sort of confirmation, the way he did when he was trying out new jokes on the road and Jon would shit him, staring blank-faced and confused, saying he didn’t get it, it really wasn’t that funny.

A sharpness shot through Jon’s lower stomach, and as he cried out it took a long moment to realize it hadn’t been in pain but in shockwaves of pleasure.  Jon let the sensation ripple through his limbs, fizzling in waves and increasing ten-fold when Denis squeezed him, harder than most women had the nerve to.  Jon felt like he was seizing.  He gripped at the sheets with one hand and bit into his knuckles as Denis started to move consistently, jolting him again and again.  Denis stopped touching him to shove Jon’s hand away from his mouth so he could kiss him instead.  He swallowed Jon’s cries between his parted lips and dragged out breaths and moans as he matched the rhythm set with the toy.  It wasn’t a toy, Jon thought.  It was an extension of Denis, and Denis was doing this to him, he was actually making him this open and gone.

Jon uttered a rough gasp and came humiliatingly quickly as Denis refused to stop moving in him and touching him.  He closed his eyes and tracked after the burning shock that vaulted through him again, once more, somehow making him self-conscious for trembling so hard and biting down on Denis’ freckled shoulder until he was the one bleeding in an uneven half-circle shape.  Denis stroked him limp until even the slightest touch verged on hyper-sensitive pain, and Jon shoved his hands away, squirming to be freed.  Denis sucked hard at his neck before slipping the toy out of him, and Jon stayed sprawled on the bed, deflated and exhausted.

He ran a hand through Denis’ hair as Denis settled by his hip and rocked against him in short, jerking movements.  The air felt hot but soft, far-away, and Jon pushed his hands into Denis’ boxers without second thought to reciprocate.  His chest burned, and it seemed strange but appropriate that this gesture, compared with what Denis had done to him, should bring him so much embarrassment.

“Ah, fucker,” Denis hissed against his shoulder, where he’d buried his face.  Jon laughed harshly in his throat.  For a split second he wondered if he’d be able to do something else for him, if he should try to put his mouth on him, but the thought sat uncomfortably in his stomach, and he felt sticky and tired with the edges of sobriety poking into his nerves.  He felt selfish and not responsible, but he knew if Denis wanted him to, he would.

Denis didn’t have time.  He pushed into Jon’s hands roughly in a series of quick bursts and then came, almost too quickly for it to be climatic, and Jon froze in surprise at his hands were covered in wet, white heat.  He withdrew them and wiped them on the covers that fell over the side of the bed, but couldn’t get all of it off.

Catching his breath, Denis stilled for a long time, his back against the wall, lying on his side facing Jon.  His eyes were closed and entire face looked like stone, sharply carved and shining.

Jon wasn’t sure if he should go to sleep.  He was in his bed.  Maybe he should shove Denis off, make him leave before things got awkward.  God.  Jon rested his fists against his forehead, then moved them away from his face when he realized they still smelled like Denis, that his entire body would until he stumbled into the shower.  He breathed heavily through his nose, pretending he was still very, very drunk so he wouldn’t have to think about things like awkwardness, because it was too soon for shit like that anyway, and there was still the whole road trip ahead of them.

***

The four of them bolted from the room the next morning before maid service arrived.  No one cleaned anything up, but Denis did return the pool net.  With everyone piled in the car, Bean was tossing the wiffle ball around in the backseat, unsuccessfully spinning it on the point of his finger.

“Best fucking sport ever,” Zito said, watching in the review mirror.  “Did you see what we did to the smoke detector?”

Jon inhaled, declaring ten o’clock late enough to start smoking while Zito drove aimlessly around in search of someplace that served breakfast sandwiches.  He’d rehearse his jokes sometime in the afternoon, show up around four, get ready for seven’s gig.  He shifted around in the back, trying to find a comfortable spot and finding it nearly impossible.  It pissed him off and made his mind wander at the same time.

He wanted to punch Denis but hadn’t found the opportunity yet.  When he least expected it, Jon decided.  Sitting outside, getting gas or cigarettes or food, not drinking though, because he wanted Denis to remember it.  Standing around somewhere, preferably alone, Jon wanted the broad side of his knuckles to connect with that smug smirk on Denis’ face.  Just to shake him up a bit.  Just to see if Denis would reciprocate, slam him against a wall, touch him again without asking.

“Hey, you gonna share or what?” Denis turned around in the passenger’s seat, extending a hand for the joint.  They were smoking in the car, idiotic like teenagers.  Jon stared him down, then realized he wasn’t doing anything of the sort.  Denis met his eyes unblinking.

“Sure,” Jon said.  He passed it up and Denis rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, almost thoughtfully, although there was the glint to his expression that hinted he was thinking something aggressive and clever, those things that Jon almost loved when divulged.

Jon waited for someone to make a crack about the gift in the brown bag, ask where it was.  Eventually they’d all laugh, picturing it lying forlornly in the middle of a demolished living room, for some poor unsuspecting cleaning woman to scoop up.  The trick of comedy was creating a picture, and that, as Bean announced with glee, was a fucked up picture.

Watching Denis’ face in the review mirror, Jon waited for some sort of agreement.  Denis merely passed the joint back to Bean, sparing Jon the smallest of glances, but letting his face break into a crooked smirk.  Satisfied, Jon settled back into his seat and thought of his jokes, as relaxation slowly settled over his nerves.

end