Skyglass: Chapter 9

MOSS

I worried at my bottom lip as the lift dropped away from Edge. The half-digested contents of my stomach sloshed around uncomfortably, making the discomfort of my current situation all the more distressing. Marko and I stood alone in that lift, side by side, resolutely not looking at each other. Marko was unmoving as he held his saplings, but I couldn’t stop fidgeting.

The empty space between us made me anxious. I wanted to put something there to keep us separate–a wall, a mountain. My skin felt paper-thin; I wanted him to touch me. I could still taste nectar and chocolate on my tongue, and cursed it–but didn’t want it gone.

“You could still spend the night at Edge,” I said, hoping words might ease the stress. “Since it’s already paid for, and you don’t exactly have a place to sleep.”

“Nah,” he said. “It would be weird.”

“My bed’s big enough.”

“That’s exactly the problem.” He sighed and leaned heavily against the back wall.

Oh. The realization was strange to me; I’d never thought of my bed as something…loaded. It was for sleeping. Not dying. Not fucking.

I swallowed. I had to ask. “Have you ever…thought about me in that way, Marko?”

I heard the creak of wood as his hands tensed around the saplings. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Have you ever thought about fucking me?” My whole body felt brittle with stress. Did I really want to know? No. I didn’t–did I?

Marko let out a weak laugh. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

I don’t know. It was hard to believe anyone would want me in their bed. I’d drag too much piss in with me. And…and I just couldn’t believe it, period.

“I try really hard not to,” Marko said. His voice was low and hoarse. “But sometimes thoughts…just come. So I push them away. And when they come back, I push them away again. It’s hard, but…it’s the right thing to do.” He pressed a hand to his mouth. “It’s bad enough that I love, you know? Wanting to fuck you–that’s just another thing you really don’t need to hear from me.”

I took a deep breath. My stomach felt abnormally warm. “It’s…okay. Natural, right?”

He shrugged, head still down, eyes still shut.

“Look at me,” I said.

He shifted slightly, opened his eyes–but kept them low.

I swallowed again. “You know I’ve never had sex. Right? So even if we did. Well. It would be rotten.”

Marko was quiet at first. His mouth was slightly open, faintly forming words, like he wasn’t sure what the best way to respond would be.

Finally, he just said, “I…didn’t know. And…don’t piss on yourself. I’m sure you’d be really great.” He looked away.

Something started to…sear in me. Without thinking, I edged closer, ’til we were touching at the shoulders. He jumped a little and glanced at me. His lips were pressed tight, his brows drawn steeply together. He tipped his head down until our foreheads met.

A breath left him–short, frustrated. I felt the shape of his mouth against my skin as he whispered, “Fuck.” One of his hands trailed up my back and knotted in my hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing down my temple to the edge of my ear, his lips making me ache intensely and stupidly. “I just…want you,” he said. “Tell me to stop.” His grip in my hair tightened. “Please.”

I opened my mouth, to reply or lean in to kiss him–I didn’t know which–but the lift jolted to a stop before I could choose. The doors opened and let in a group of poppers.

Marko cursed as they staggered against us, smelling of strawberry vodka, babbling like a brook of inebriated fish. The combined weight of their drunken sway pushed us toward the lift’s rightward windows. Marko tried shifting away from the forced view of our descent, but there was nowhere to go. He closed his eyes, but I stared at the fairy-dust smear of the world rushing past us.

“Hey,” I said.

He shut his eyes and whimpered in reply.

“You’re not gonna die,” I sighed, but grabbed his hand. I felt his tension all along the right side of my body, but he didn’t let go, and neither did I. I could still feel the heat of his mouth on my skin–the moment hadn’t broken, it was just stretching.

We stayed awkward and strained ’til the lift slowed and stopped; as the poppers bumbled out, we followed with a little more grace. I extricated my fingers from his, shoved my hands in my pockets. He leaned against the wall outside the tree’s entrance, still looking a little sweaty and shaken.

“Are you okay to drive?” I asked. It wasn’t what I wanted to say.

Marko wouldn’t look at me again. He opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated and shook his head. “Probably not. But I think I’m gonna grab a drink somewhere. I’ll probably just sleep in the van tonight. I won’t drive after I drink, promise.”

I stared at my feet and laughed. “What happened to quitting?”

“It’s…a process,” he said, only half smiling. He gripped the saplings tighter, then added in a rush, “You should could come with.” He grimaced. “Actually, no. Forget I said that.”

I stared at him, my right hand still clenched in my pocket. His grip had been warm, and nice, and tingly–or had that been mine? And his mouth. His rotting mouth. I wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but it made me wonder: what did I need? And maybe more importantly, what did I want? “Okay,” I said.

He finally met my gaze, looking startled. “Wait…really?”

“Really,” I affirmed.

Half an hour later, we sat side by side on stools in the dark recesses of an outdoor tavern, away from the overcrowded bar. A deluge of green hops-cones encircled our niche; it felt far more intimate than Edge, especially with the sloughing candles wax-welded into the center of our table. They smelled of pinesap and oats–like my childhood home had, minus the scent of rawhide and goat’s blood. Mark had his head down, right cheek pressed into an arm as he played with the rivulets of melted candle creeping across the table.

I leaned on my elbows, listening to the rain beyond the biomass, and contemplated my second shot of whiskey, which glinted warmly before me. I sighed, then tossed it back. Marko shifted, stool squealing. He kept his head in his arms as he watched me take my shot. It slipped down like acid, but I didn’t flinch–the whiskey tasted good. It felt good.

“How come flying through the air in a metal box is fine, but riding an elevator scares you pissless?” I asked, eager to break the quiet. Silence had never felt so awkward and fraught.

Marko’s gaze slipped out of focus as he thought. “I guess…because when I’m driving, I’m in control, and because I trust myself, it’s okay. And when you drive, that’s okay, because I trust you.”

I tried smiling, but couldn’t. I’d meant to tease him and then he’d gone and made everything serious. “I’m not sure I’m trustworthy,” I finally said.

“I know you are,” he said resolutely.

I raised an eyebrow. It was hard to take his sincerity seriously when a very generous third of his bottle of vodka was gone.

He frowned. “You don’t believe me.” He ran a finger back and forth through the candle flames. “Am I not trustworthy anymore?” he wondered, then let out a breath. “I mean, I failed you, didn’t I? I tried so hard to keep the shop so you’d have a job, ’cause I knew you wouldn’t take charity. But…you can only take out so many loans before they stop giving them to you, you know?”

“What?” I asked sharply.

“Oh…fuck.” He pressed his forehead against the bottle’s shoulders. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut. You weren’t supposed to know.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You are so stupid, Marko. Give me that.” I held out my hand, grabbed the bottle of vodka, took a deep swig, and came up coughing. When I’d caught my breath, I said, “You don’t get how good you are to me, do you? Or how patient. I know I’m not easy to be around…much less love.”

Marko smiled tentatively and shifted closer until we touched. I didn’t move. He held out a hand for the vodka. I returned it wordlessly.

My head felt like it was expanding in slow-moving waves, making me regret that last drink. All the drinks. And the aphrodisiac chocolate, which the alcohol was barely suppressing. A weird, staticky heat was growing in my stomach. My flank, where Marko had made contact, felt like someone had lit it on fire.

Marko pushed his hand against mine. “Hey,” he said. I looked at him, and realized his face couldn’t possibly be that wet without the addition of tears. Great. I’d made him cry.

“Will…you hug me now?” he asked. “You said–”

“I know,” I cut him off. “I remember.” Then I stood and said softly, maybe a little whiskey-and-vodka slurred, “C’mere.”

Mark leaned against the table to hide his drunken tilt as I stepped between his legs, slipping close until we were touching. Instinct told me that this was more than a hug–too much prolonged forward movement, too much lingering, the crawl of my hands up his chest to grip his shoulders a little too personal–but I didn’t care right then. Instead of backpedaling, I moved forward so I could rest my face against his neck and feel his pulse–sure and steady against the side of my mouth, despite the definite tremble of his hands.

“You all right?” I mumbled against his skin.

“I don’t know.”

I sighed through my nose and brushed my lips against his long hair, then the pulse in his neck, then the corner of his jaw. Then the hollow just below his bottom lip.

“Gods dammit, Moss,” he choked out.

I squeezed my eyes tight and found his unsteady mouth; I moved my hands to his hair, pulled the locks from their loosening plait as our mouths slid together and sideways and apart and together.

“You make things so difficult,” he mumbled when I pulled back, but he had his hands under my shirt, on my back–avoiding my stomach and my hips like I wanted, even though I wanted him to touch my hips. And then, of course, he did, just moments later–thumbs playing gently along the jut of my hipbones, gliding down, but never too far.

“You–you have this creepy talent for knowing exactly what I want,” I said, breath hitching as one of his palms ghosted against my inner leg, but went no farther.

“Except for the love bit?” he asked.

“Except that.” I leaned back, slowly, numbly. My brain was a battering ram against my skull. I knew I wasn’t being fair, or right–I was doing everything wrong, treating him wrong. I was losing control and hurting everything in the process.

He caught my hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. I squirmed and pulled back; I didn’t want to think about how good it felt to have his mouth there. Too dangerous.

“I should go,” I said.

“Okay.” The corners of his mouth fell, but he let go.

“Don’t drive tonight,” I told him. “Please.”

“I won’t,” he said, refusing to make eye contact as he settled back on his stool.

I backed away, steady as I could with too much alcohol in my blood, and left him alone with the candlelight.

Proceed to Chapter 9, page 3–>