Pretty street boy

A/N - I’m finally able to get back with this story, I’m so happy about that. I had to shelf it for the month of November as I participated in NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month). I’m very happy to say that even though I signed up late, (Nov. 15th), I was still able to complete the 50,000 word goal. My final word count was 50,625. I’m very proud of my efforts, even if it was all crap in the name of word-count. ^____^

At any rate, I had the very bare bones idea for the purpose of this chapter right in the middle of that insane two week period, after resting my writing muses for a little while, I was able to get back at it. Thanks for reading! Enjoy! ~Best Left Exposed


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The idea that Michael was once a human, a man like myself, intrigued me. And I yearned more than ever to know more about him, even as I had to deal with my own internal struggles. I wasn't sure if I would ever come to terms with what had happened to me and what I felt about it with my newly opened emotional well. To say, "It hurt," it was a supreme understatement.

The new day was as bleak and grey as any I'd ever remember seeing. Nothing moved in the foggy greyness that shrouded everything in it's damp embrace. For some reason the billowing curls of low clouds called my name. Calling me out from my room and into the early pre-day. The sun, still slumbering, had yet to burn the fog off and the grey swirls of it parted reluctantly to let me pass. The heavy dew clinging to my hair; it hung in wet strands that stuck to my face and neck. The air was chill, but not overly so. I'd grabbed a light jacket as I headed out one of the many doors that would take me to the gardens. Something was pulling my footsteps as surely as if I had a rope tied to my wrists and was being drug along. I didn't really think about where I was going, didn't acknowledge that I was pulled anywhere in particular, but it was there, none the less.

As I walked down the shallow stone steps, pulling my jacket a bit tighter around me, I squinted into the dense grey. I realized that I could barely make out anything five feet in front of me. I smiled a bit. I liked the sense of being blanketed. Tucked neatly into the world, unseen. The steps were taken with the ease of long familiarity, and I had a strong urge for a cigarette. The chill fog calling me back to before. The habit I'd all but given up since coming here whispering at me, seducing my network of veins and nerves until I was coiled tightly with it. I stuck my hand in the pocket and found what I was looking for. It didn't matter anyway. I was already dead, and I enjoyed the feel of the smoke curling down my throat as I sucked it in, just like a hazy memory of come swallowed hungrily. It was that sensual, too. The tiny flame from the lighter blinked a halo around me in the thick fog briefly as it ate greedily the paper and tobacco from the cig dangling from my mouth.

It'd been quite a long time and I luxuriated in the sensations of smoking as I continued to wander with subconscious purpose. The tingle of a buzz making me feel light. Michael would've given me a Look had He caught me imbibing in such a nasty habit. I didn't care, though. I liked it; anyone else could kiss my ass. The thought of Michael pulled me into that train of thought that had come earlier that morning, shortly after I had settled myself back into a calm. The nightmares were coming, still, as strong as ever. I studied the glowing ember in contemplation. The too real dreams were probably the reason I needed to sink back into old habits, again. They were eating away at me, my already strained nerves being flayed every night. Michael, with certainty, knew what I was going through, to a degree. He, I was sure, had relived all his worst memories and dealt with them. Dealt with them like I was not.

I repelled the urge to look at my hands. I didn't want to see what was there. The blackness covering my skin like a glove of dried blood that couldn't be washed away. It burned into my skin. Whenever I did look, I was always surprised that my long fingers weren't shriveled into burnt husks. What had He done that had brought Him here? Here to resurrect me into something that could be used for whatever purpose Creation had for me. And in His life, Creation knowing He would be needed for me, everything He'd had to deal with, whatever it was, finally able to be healed completely for that very reason. And for myself, did I even have a choice in enduring all that I had? I resolutely moved away from those thoughts. Even the idea of not having a choice, brought me no comfort. I had dealt with it in the wrong way. But I wondered, being made as I had, did I even have a choice in that? The things to come afterward would need my particular talents. I shivered to think of it. I didn't want it.

I'd moved like a wraith, splitting the fog around me, swirling to a close behind me. No trace of my having passed there. Ghosts were everywhere in that fog. I closed my eyes briefly against it.....


I'd been pushed too far one other time. Years had passed and it was a distant memory that I never revisited. But it was there again when I looked down at my hands. Covered up to my elbows in blood. Oozing down the front of my tee shirt like thick syrup. The smell of fear and death heavy in the air, I was choking on it.

That instinctual survival had gripped me by the throat ruthlessly again. If I was to die, I wanted it to be alone, with the coldness enclosing around me like the numbness in my heart. But the man at my feet had different ideas about my way of passing. I looked at him as an artist studies a model - unfazed, unfeeling. He was a beautiful young man. Long blonde hair curling in soft wisps around his finely featured face. Grey/blue eyes stared unseeing up into the sky which was partially blocked by the overpass that spanned the river. His lips were parted just so, like he was waiting breathlessly for a kiss. I knelt to touch him, fascinated with his visage that was slightly twisted in death pains. My thumb passed over those full lips, leaving a smear of blood in a parody of lipstick. I raised it to my own lips, sucking on the now sticky, cold substance, not even thinking about what it was I did.

The young man had seen me walking down the busy sidewalk, the rush of people pushing me along. He'd caught my eye and smiled and I found myself veering towards him, even as he made his way toward me. Kindred souls pulling to each other. He was dressed like a hooker, very much unlike myself in every way. He was smiling easily, the look of a hunter in his eyes. What I took, not seeking it, he actively sought out and got paid for. As he reached my side, I continued walking, not looking at him.

"My name's Jay."

I didn't care what his name was and forgot it as soon as it passed my ears. I said nothing.

"I heard you were slutting around here for free." He was purposefully blunt and got right to the point.

Again, I remained silent.

"It's bad for business. Someone as lovely as you giving it away for free," he ran a hand down my shoulder as we walked. Slow and full of all the promises of pleasure. "You could come work with us; make a decent living. If you're going to let them fuck you anyway, might as well earn something for it."

I glanced up at him. He was stunning to look at. Eyes bright from behind dark eyeliner. Lips glittering with glossy lipstick. His hair swayed around his shoulders as he walked. "I'm not interested," I croaked out.

"Well, I am," he said, guiding me. We were walking toward the bridge. I followed where he led, knowing, like I always knew, that I was about to get fucked.

Under the overpass, at the river's edge, it was dark. The solid beams that held the bridge in stark contrast to the softness of the sand and the fluidity of the water that lapped against it. Once in the dark embrace of the shadows, he pulled me to him, forcefully held against his chest. Hot breath against my ear.

"Someone as beautiful as you... if you don't join us, you might come to harm." His words were spoken softly, filled with lust and danger. "I wouldn't want that, neither would you." He ran his fingers through my hair and tugged my head back. Assaulting my lips with his own, brutally. I didn't fight him, but let him overpower me.

His free hand was skimming across my body, and that shell that held my empty spirit, as it always did, betrayed my lack of interest in what was happening, my cock slowly filled with blood. He cooed in my ear, whispering words of love or hate. I didn't even hear what he was saying. As his fingers made their way down into the waist of my jeans and wrapping their warm lengths around my cock, I moaned as he laughed.

"Such sweetness from a cool exterior. No wonder all the Johns want a piece of you. Can't have a little fucker like you around this area." The hand that was tangled in my hair slid down to grip my throat gently, guiding me down to lie on the sand. "But before I say good-bye, I may as well have a little taste of you myself. They didn't tell me I couldn't have a bit of fun first." He was smiling maliciously then. All pretense of kindness gone.

I laid there as he jerked my jeans off and my bared ass was cupped by the shadow-chilled sand. I closed my eyes. I never fought it anymore. There was no use in fighting, it only made the pain sharper. I lost myself in the darkness that I'd created for myself. As I felt him move into me forcefully, angrily, my body moved with his. No matter how I denied that I hated it, I couldn’t fight that long, low pulse that spoke of pleasure deep in my groin. That ache urging me toward the very thing that filled me with shame, even as I was brought to the rim of those heady heights and willfully stepped over.

The black was fading and I could still feel him pounding into my raw, unprepared flesh. My own seed was spilled across my belly, I could feel it cooling rapidly into gelatinous globs. His hand was still on my throat and as he neared the same edge I had just plummeted over, his grip tightened. Gradually pressing into my tender neck, he was slowly choking me. The black threatened the edges of my vision again, but it wasn't the comforting familiarity, it was hot and angry. Like flames licking dried tender. My eyes were opened wide staring into his face. His beauty contorted into pleasure and hate. A feral smile was pulling at his mouth, showing his white teeth like an animal. The sand under my ass was biting at me like sandpaper, no longer soft as it cradled me. I was losing breath and started to struggle. My knife was miles away in my pants pocket down by his feet. I willed it to fly into my hand, but it remained buried in it's burrow of fabric.

He was getting close. His strokes coming harder and faster than before, I could feel his cock swelling in the tight confines of my ass and I whimpered in pain. Pain and panic like bolt of lightening flashing through my body. And then it happened. I refused. I refused to die that way. Having a cock shoved up my ass while I took my last breath, I wasn't going out like that. Never. They would never take me that way. Vulnerable as I was under him, he was lost to his pleasure. I forced my will upon my struggling body and calmed myself. I was lifted from the pain as I looked at him and shoved my fisted hand as hard as I could manage into his throat. I felt something crack under my knuckles and he pulled away from me in shock.

I found it in myself to wonder how he could've figured anyone would just lay there and take their death easily. I supposed, not having struggled until then, he thought I was drugged and wouldn't notice. I couldn't pretend to understand what went through his mind. I didn't really care. The relenting need for survival had completely taken over my body. He sat back, hands on his own throat. Pain, anger and a little fear twisted his face into a fierce grimace. I was already moving, fast as a preternatural thing, reaching for my jeans. To his credit, he still possessed some rational thought and he grabbed the leg as I pulled them to me. Both in pain, we were evenly matched, but I had what I wanted in five heartbeats.

The knife was opened quickly and cupped in my hand, blade resting along my palm, point teasing my wrist like a barely restrained animal seeking blood. I let go of the jeans and he sat back hard in the sand and I was on him in an instant, my knife stabbing deep into his chest, seeking his heart. I wondered if there was truly a heart in that hollow cavern, the blood was filling the split flesh as quickly as I carved out deep canyons. The young man was instantly dead with the first stab, the knife hitting home with deadly precision, but I continued to cut into him, morbidly fascinated with the colors and patterns the blood was making across his skin and out into the sand.

Like a puppet, I stood jerkily to my feet and stared down at him. His once brightly lit eyes gone dim......


I staggered in the fog, my feet tripping over a root that seemed to have reached up from the sodden earth to grab at me. Those dim ghostly eyes were following me in the fog, accusing. My cigarette fell, forgotten, to the ground.

"Nathan," a voice echoed, quiet and hollow, from the mist.

I jumped, startled, and turned in a half-crouch to see Michael appear like those ghosts from the pre-dawn lit fog.

"I didn't mean to startle you."

I smiled wanly. Still not able to completely relax, the vision of blood still rimming the edges of my awareness.

Michael looked up to the East. "The fog should burn completely off in about an hour. Where were you heading?"

"No where. Just walking."

"It's a dreary morning for it," He commented.

We walked for a short while in companionable silence, my mind circling around the fact that the softly glowing figure walking beside me was once a man. I cast a covert glance at Him as I reached into my pocket for another cigarette. He indeed gave me a Look when I lit it as I expected, but said nothing, which was oddly not comforting at all.

"You said you were human once," I spoke into the heavy quiet.

"Yes."

"I saw you that time... you know what it's like don't you?"

"Know what what's like?"

I gritted my teeth and took a long drag on the cig. "Dealing with the memories of your previous existence," I said with exasperation.

"I do."

"Tell me... what were you like before you came here?"

"I don't think that information is pertinent at this time. You need to focus on dealing with your own internal struggles. Knowledge of who I was before will only hinder you."

"How can you be sure? If I knew what you had to deal with, maybe that would help me work through my own... problems." I thought that was reasonable.

"Nathan. There are things about who I was that are... unpleasant. Leave it at that."

"And what's worse than a murderer? You know what I've done and excepted me anyway. How can you be any different?"

"I do know that whatever you did was in self-defense. There is a difference."

"The end result is the same, though, isn't it? They're still dead. It doesn't matter the reason. I could've ran away or at least disabled them, but I killed them. Killed them all." I flopped down on a cold concrete garden bench, covering my face in my free hand.

Michael sat down beside me. As always, I was keenly aware of His presence whenever He was near. "All things move forward as is it has been decreed."

"Cold comfort for the living and the dead," I snapped, flicking away the still burning cig.

"There are worse things than killing or dying, Nathan. Believe me in that. I think if you search past the notion of death you will realize the truth of it. What happens when you die?"

I thought about what He said. "You go back into the ether," I said, still not grasping what He was saying.

"And if you hadn't killed them, only injured them, what would've happened to them?"

"They would've still been alive."

"Yes. Think about it."

I sat there in silence, the sun finally peeking out from behind the horizon, turning the morning fog into a brilliant glow of oranges,reds, pinks and purples. The low lying clouds reflecting the light like a mirror, creating the illusion of being wrapped in a ethereal down blanket. If I hadn't taken their lives, what would they have become, living the rest of it out? Would they have found happiness? It was possible. Would they have ever thought about the young, beautiful boy they had tried to kill? Would the guilt eat at them, or would they go on to commit even greater atrocities? And what would that entail? My imagination supplied far too many. Imagination fueled from my own experiences.

"They would've lived horribly," I said finally. "Guilt or no guilt. Personal salvation or no, they would've been worse off than where I sent them." The ghostly shapes moving around me seemed to mock my statement, but I turned my head away from them to look at Him. "Tell me, Michael, please. I need to know."

He touched my cheek as He often did and curled His fingers loosely around a strand of my hair and let it slip through His hand. "Do the nightmares still come just as strongly, then?"

I peered out as far as my eyes could see, straining for the landmarks I knew were there, seeing nothing. "They do."

"Would that I could take them away from you," He murmured in sympathy.

"You were a man. You felt human emotions, once. If we'd have met on the street as we were before, what would've happened?" I felt the all encompassing urge to push the subject. To get Michael to reveal even a little of Himself.

He laid a hand on my shoulder and gripped it firmly. He was staring down at me and I couldn't tear my eyes away. Something was sparking behind those depths that was fearsome. "You truly want to know what I was before?"

I dimly nodded my head, eyes wide.

"I was a monster," He said slowly, releasing me and turned away, not wanting to look at me. "If I would've met you on the street, you would've gotten what you always got and much worse." His mouth was pressed downward, frowning, not wanting to admit his own sins. "You think I've washed my hands of those stains? I still fight it, Nathan. Not often anymore, but they’re still there..."

His words sank in and I pulled away from Him. "No... no... impossible!" I didn't want to believe any of what He'd told me. There was no way Michael who glowed with such inner peace and compassion was one of those kind of men. How cruel that we two were brought together, if it were the truth. Myself, a victim of such horrors that my own mind refused to wrap around them and Michael who was the very monster that I tried so hard to avoid. I felt the anguish knot in my gut and I doubled over with it. Hot tears splashing down on my knees.

Michael reached to gently touch my shoulder in sympathy, put I jerked away from Him. "Don't touch me!" I yelled around the agony that ripped through my trembling body. The bright morning dawning beautifully through the fading fog in spite of the shock that sent me spiraling into the darkest despair.

"Nathan, please! Don't pull away from me. I know you can see it's not like that any more. Why do you think I've denied myself the pleasure of touching you, when I could see how badly you desired it? Being here together... it's a healing process for both of us. I've been alone for a very long time. Long enough to have those inner demons scoured completely from my soul, but still alone with my lingering guilt and self-hate. I knew my purpose long before your birth and have waited for you with hopeful patience." He was speaking with the urgency of someone who feels like they are about to lose something and He was right to feel that way.

I shrunk inward, feeling utterly betrayed. "I trusted you! How could you!" I felt the irrational anger bubbling up from within my gut, surging around the bitterness of the perceived falseness of our relationship up to that point. I ran. Leaving Michael sitting alone on the cold stone bench with His own doubts wrapping around Him.


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So we get a bit more background on Michael, yay! ^_^ Since the basic idea for this chapter has been stewing around in my mind for almost a month, I'm so glad to finally get it out. Still, it always takes me by surprise when I finally get to typing on it - I never know what's going to happen!! lol

Thanks again so much for reading with me and the reviews are just wonderful! Thank you! For every new one that is posted, I am encouraged to keep writing. All my best over the holiday season... ~BLE