Candy Kisses

Candy Kisses

Chapter Five

“I Wish I’d Never Met You
Or That I Could Bear To Let You Go”
--The Pet Shop Boys

In the dream, it’s always the same.

Marzi’s eyes are always closed. But he can feel the silk sheets against his naked body. He can feel the tension in the ropes which bind his wrists to the headboard. He can feel the drop of sweat slowly trickling down his throat. And he knows where he is -- knows that if he opens his eyes, he’ll see patches of color falling across the bed, like light through a cathedral window. But he won’t open his eyes. Not this time.

This time will be different, he vows. However, after so many nights, the resolution sounds hollow, even to him.

The first touch is barely a flicker. The ghost of a caress, it skitters across his cheek on phantom feet. Marzi’s breath quickens. He wants to press closer, to feel more. But he can’t let himself. To surrender is to betray the person he cares about more than any other. So, despite his longing, he forces himself to twist his face away.

Open your eyes, a familiar voice commands.

But Marzi shakes his head. Opening his eyes will make it real. If he stays in the darkness, he can still deny what’s happening -- can still deny the treachery in his conflicted heart.

The caress, however, is not deterred. Instead, it becomes more insistent. Skillful fingers find Marzi’s mouth. Sliding into the valley between his lips, they stroke the sensitive flesh, attempting to coax them open. Marzi tries to be strong. Tries to prove his resistance by straining against his bonds. But the rope bites into his wrists, mixing pleasure and pain into an intoxicating elixir. Unable to stop himself, Marzi moans, allowing the fingers entrance.

Once inside, the fingers brush against his tongue, and despite his previous resolve, Marzi is quick to respond. Licking and sucking, he draws them deep into his mouth. Draws them deep into his bottomless hunger. His own hands curl into fists, and his body rises and falls against the cool sheets, undulating in time to his oral caress. He wants to devour and be devoured. His blood feels like its boiling, and fire is all he can remember.

Open your eyes.

But again, Marzi refuses. That much he will not do. Not tonight.

As if in punishment, the fingers withdraw from his mouth. Gasping for breath, Marzi licks his lips, trying to catch some lingering trace of their flavor. But all he tastes is his own sweat. Maybe it’s over, he tells himself. Maybe tonight, I’ll finally be strong enough.

He should know better. After a moment, the caress returns, spreading Marzi’s legs as easily as it spread his lips. Fingers tease the insides of his thighs, until he shudders with desire. Then, they trail upward, wrapping around the aching hardness of his erection. Helplessly, Marzi bucks. Throws his body against empty air, his motions becoming more desperate and clumsy, despite the caress’s continued grace.

Oh god...please... he whimpers, fully aware that this has nothing to do with god. This is Lucifer’s fall. This is damnation.

Open your eyes.

Utterly defeated, Marzi opens his eyes. And sees Kale. The man who betrayed him, the man who murdered Pepper. The man who Marzi should hate with all his heart. But Marzi can no longer pretend that the emotions he feels have anything to do with hatred. How long? Marzi pleads. How long until I can dream about anything except you?

Kale doesn’t answer. Instead, he smiles, and climbs onto the bed, straddling Marzi’s prone body. Marzi knows what comes next. And he wants it -- wants it like an addict wants smack, like a masochist wants pain, like a vampire wants blood. But to surrender is to betray Pepper, and he will not do that. Not even in a dream. Fighting to awake, Marzi claws his way towards consciousness. He rips through layer after layer of his surroundings, as if each one was nothing more than a painted veil, until finally the last veil falls, and he finds himself in darkness. Alone. Utterly alone.

Marzi’s eyes snapped open. But the darkness remained. For one horrible instant, he thought that he’d become trapped in the gap between sleep and life. Then, slowly, the familiar shadows of his bedroom drew themselves out of the night, and he knew that he’d made it home.

Pepper? Afraid that she was awake, afraid that she had witnessed some portion of his humiliation, Marzi whispered his sister’s name so softly that it was barely an echo. But nothing answered him. Pepper remained asleep, deep in the comfort of angelic dreams. Despite all she had done to save his soul, that much still separated them -- at night, she went to heaven, while he went to hell.

Numb to everything except the burning of his unsatisfied body, Marzi struggled out of bed. It will pass, he told himself, as he made his way toward the bathroom. I just need to give it time.

During the day, giving it time felt easy. During the day, he busied himself with candy and magic, and hid his pain from Pepper, ashamed that he could still desire the man who had killed her. But the night allowed no such deceptions. When he lay down in bed, the night came to him like a ghost, and whispered the truth with a voice as cold as the grave.

Arriving at the bathroom, Marzi yanked open the medicine cabinet, and grabbed a familiar bottle. A few sleeping pills would banish the dreams. They were the only thing that would. Marzi’s hand trembled as he tilted the bottle and a flurry of capsules spilled out onto his palm. On any other night, he would have poured the extras back, but tonight he cradled them in his cupped hand and thought of a darkness deeper than sleep. A darkness that would take away his memories, and his loneliness, and his despair. Forever.

But he couldn’t. If he went, he’d take Pepper with him, and she didn’t deserve that. She deserved the best life he could give her. Furious with himself for even thinking it, Marzi hurled the sleeping pills at the bathroom wall, and they rattled against the tile like hail. He had failed Pepper once. He wouldn’t do it again.

It will pass, he repeated. I just need to find someone else.

Except that there was no one else. He’d tried. In the first weeks after his split with Kale, he’d gone to clubs, seduced beautiful strangers, and waited for the one whose touch would feel like Kale’s. Then, when that had failed, he’d sunk deeper, seeking more violent means of solace. Pepper used to complain about the bruises and lash marks on their body that she didn’t remember getting. But even that hadn’t been enough. Nothing was enough.

Marzi pushed back the plastic curtain and stepped into the shower, determined to let the cold water wash the heat from his skin. After turning the knob, he tilted his head back. Glared upward with accusing eyes. “Why?” he hissed, wondering if desperation would carry his words up to heaven. “If I’m supposed to be good, why did you make me so broken, and weak, and selfish?”

But heaven didn’t answer. Sinking to his knees against the cold ceramic, Marzi let the water beat against his naked body, and prayed that it would blast away all his sins. Or, failing that, he prayed that it would at least mask the tears of longing and heartache which kept leaking from his eyes.