by Sommer Marsden
(10/01/08)

The talk in the industry is that Derrick isn't stable. He still performs. He goes on stage and thrashes and wails, sings his songs of heartbreak and dances in sweaty leather. His razorblade voice slices through the smoky darkness to touch troubled hearts and broken people. But Derrick isn't stable.

"Hey, Kit Kat, what's shaking?" Doug the bouncer is a giant. His shorn head and deep brown eyes, so dark they look black, are imposing. His girth is impressive. His biceps are the size of my thighs. But he has a tiny voice, a big heart and when he grins he looks like a giant seven year old.

"Came to see that man."

He frowns when I say that. It is abnormal to see Doug frown. "He's not so good, Kit. He's in a bad, bad way. You're a good friend to come. A lot of his friends are staying away." Doug's frown deepens and I want to hug him. But I don't. For tonight it's all about Derrick and his big gaping wound of pain. The ache he is trying to drown in booze and bimbos and if the rumors are right, some interesting cocktails of drugs.

"That's because those friends aren't really his friends. Am I right?"

We jokingly bump knuckles because it is something we would never really do naturally. It is awkward and that's what makes it funny. "You're right. Love the hair, by the way."

I run my hand over my recently chopped black hair. An uneven asymmetrical bob with a stripe of hot pink through my bangs. A chunk of lime green striping down the back like a tail. "Why, thank you. I'll be the belle of the ball." I bat my lashes and he steps aside.

"Be prepared. He's...he's so far down I don't know if we can pull him back up."

That's encouraging. I shudder and move past him. He touches me briefly but lets me pass. I knock once and don't get an answer. I go in anyway.

Derrick is lying on the battered green sofa, one arm over his eyes. His fingernails show chipped black polish. He's sleeping maybe. Or passed out. Or so I think. When I try to move into the room, he rolls and looks at me. Slowly. Like a lizard. Green eyes surrounded by smeared kohl. He is beautiful in his agony.

"How are you?" I ask the stupid question and wish I could suck it back into my mouth and swallow it whole.

"I don't want to talk, Kitty Kat. No talking for Derrick tonight. I'm tired. And pissed. But mostly tired and mostly from being pissed. It's exhausting being a waste of skin." He rolls his head away, shutting me out.

I want to run over and kick him in the side with my Doc Marten. I want to kick him until the pain of busted ribs and bruised organs snaps him out of this shit. I want to hug him to me and rock him like I used to rock my baby sister when she had colic. I want to grab his spiky dirty hair and hold his head while I smack him into reality.

Instead I put my bag down and open it. I shrug off my black coat and throw my charcoal gray gloves on top of it. I pull the copper-colored wig from my bag. It's a short pageboy and I have to work my hair into a knot to get it on. And it's a fucking shame because it took me forever to achieve that crown of chaos. I sigh but try not to do it too loudly. I get the wig snug and light a cigarette. I don't smoke anymore but that's not the point.

"Come on, baby," I say. In her voice. Not my voice. Emily. Or as we all called her, the devil's daughter. Long gone now. Married and mommied and all that good picket fence shit. That bitch.

He waves at me without looking up. Paws at the air with his big pale hand. Fuck off that hand says.

"You know you want it," I say in Emily's signature sing song. Emily treated Derrick like a game. She picked and prodded and poked through his insides. Peeked into his soul, ransacked his mind. She made him love her. Ugly, desperate, dependent love. We all warned him. And he waved his fuck-off hand at us and fell deeply in love with her. And she left. Disappeared like graveyard vapor when Derrick could barely breathe without her.

It doesn't help that she married someone in the business. Or that her pictures are plastered all over the magazines and the gossip columns. Every time he sees one it's as if someone has turned him inside out. He is all meat and gristle, and a slowly beating heart that is just looking for a reason to cease its movement.

I take a few more puffs and crush out the cigarette. My head is buzzing and my lungs ache. The old familiar craving for more rears up but I know it will pass. "Baby, baby, baby," I croon and he stills on the sofa. I know he is listening to me.

I am only doing this because, in my own way, I love Derrick too. We had something once upon a time. I thought I really loved him. But he was incapable of loving me. Not in a good way. It was all dark, clinging love. And then we were fuck buddies because Derrick is mad in the sack. He is like some caged animal who wants to see and taste and hear and snort fucking. It is a beautiful experience if you're not attached. Now he is my friend. I love him, so I am her. I'm Emily. For tonight.

"Roll for me, D." I sink to my knees in front of the threadbare sofa. I rub my hand up his back, barely touching him. The touch of a ghost. Which is what I am pretty much. The ghost of Emily.

He turns his head and peeks at me with one bloodshot eye. A small boy peeking from under the covers to see if I'm friend or foe. The tooth fairy -- or the boogie man.

"Please," I say and touch the small of his back. I tug his black studded belt with my finger and lick my lips because I know he's watching.

I know the details of Derrick and Emily. I know because I have listened to countless drunken recitations of her skills at blow jobs. How soft and tight her cunt was. How big her tits were. That she knew how to stick her finger up his ass just enough to make him come, and then come again. I have endured all of these tales of sex and woe and then had to deal with clumsy half-assed attempts at kissing me. But this is different.

In my own way, I love Derrick. He loves Emily. He needs this. I can give it to him. So for tonight, he has what he needs. It's simple math really. I want to split him open emotionally and let the blackness pour out. But this is all I can do. A fucking band aid.

"Will you?" he says to my lips.

I nod and the short fake bangs tickle my forehead. "You know I love it. Come on, sit up for me."

"Can I just roll, Em? I'm tired. So tired."

I nod and the sides of the wig tickle my cheeks, like fucking spiders are crawling on me. From the act of impersonation and the wig itself. I have to bite my tongue to keep from freaking out. But then Derrick turns and I see how thin he's gone and the hollows under his eyes and I know I can do this. It's only one night. He touches my cheek and I close my eyes. Mostly because my eyes are blue and Emily's are a deep smoky gray. Partly because his touch is so reverent. As if I am sacred. "Baby," he says.

I pull at the buckle and he raises his hips for me. Finally, his cock is free and I bend over him. Smell the dark smell of despair and submission coming from him. I lick at the head of his cock and he hisses like I've burned him. His head falls back and he's touching my hair. Only with his fingertips. Like I might disappear if he touches me fully. I lower my mouth onto him. Take him deep. Inhale him, swallow him. Stroke his legs while he moves in slow motion under my damp hot mouth.

I feel a tear leak from my eye but I refuse to cry. No fucking way. This is not sad. This is necessary. Like giving him medicine or putting him in rehab. He needs release even if it's with a phantom. Maybe his head will clear, or maybe, at the very least, there will be some solace.

I push at his hips and he surprises me with his strength. I thought the blow job would be it. And I don't mind it any. My mouth has been here before. So has my cunt for that matter. I am fine with sex for the sake of friendship and questionable sanity. But he arches up and pulls me off. "Get on me, Em. Climb on, baby. I want to be in you. In you. Close to you." He sounds drunk or drugged but I think he's half dreaming. I think what's really going on is he is caught in some surreal, softly moldable space between what is memory and what is real.

I shake my head and the invisible spiders crawl over my face. My neck. I repress a shudder and try to resume my job. My mouth. His cock. End of story.

He tugs at me now with long gangly arms. The tattoo he got for her seems to glow. A red angel. An angel of fire. I want to grab a Sharpie and black it out, that constant reminder of the one who walked away. What must he see when he looks at her?

I move then. I'm in my own dream state now. Somehow trapped in his pain and frustration. I go when he moves me. I watch when he pushes up my short red leather skirt and steals the petal-pink panties from my body. I watch as his black painted fingernails disappear one at a time inside of me. I watch his face, dreamy and detached but intense as he fucks me with his fingers, rubs my G-spot until I am clutching the back of the sofa and moaning.

"Come for me," he says and I do. I come and it's sweet. They say the blackest berry is the sweetest. Is it the oddness, the wrongness, that makes my orgasm so intense? So incredibly sugary? I don't know.

I lower onto him without request. My deep purple fingernails scream out from the white of his shredded tee. The red-tailed hawk tattooed on his forearm regards me with hot black eyes. He thrusts up under me and sinks into me. Derrick is big and it takes a moment for me to adjust. But when he's in and I am full of him, I sigh. His eyes have lost that dreamy state. They're bright with anger, and with love. The room has lost its heavy darkness. It is charged now, like the air before lightning's hot white destruction.

"Right here," he says and I don't know what he means. So I nod.

His fingers bite into me and he pulls me down. And then his hands are everywhere. They push and pinch and stroke so fast I cannot follow and he is muttering. His cock is buried over and over again as deep as he can go. It is as if he wants to disappear into me. I love him just then. All over again, I remember why I thought I could. He rears up and bites the top of my arm and I come. Fast and hard, my cunt fists up around him and his eyes roll back.

I am gasping and moving and his face flickers somewhere between agony and ecstasy. "Right here!" he says again, his face set and feral all the sudden. His thumb finds my clit and he begins to circle me so that my pussy tightens and tightens around him. Winding me up for another hard fall.

"I know, baby," I say, hoping that will work.

When he starts to cry, I have to bite my lip. When he starts to jitter under me and clutch randomly, I lean in and bite his throat. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," I say as he comes.

"Right here," he mutters after I kiss him again. "I've been right here, Em. Waiting. Where have you been?"

I go still. I'm half off of him. His cock is softening but still in me some. I touch his belly with my fingertips and the muscles jump and flutter. It's a pretty motion to watch. Like wind over skin. "I've been gone. And I have to go again."

It's the best I can do. Maybe this was not the brightest idea.

I find my panties and shove them in my purse. I leave the wig for the moment but wrap myself in my coat to hide the smell of sex from Doug when I leave. I'll come back as myself tomorrow and tell him about the charity event I've booked, and the talk show that wants to invite him on, and the children's hospital visit. But that is for tomorrow.

I touch his hair and I swear he's snoring. My body is still beating with a pulse of its own from having him in me. Having him touch me. I won't think about how much I liked the feel of him. When I go to leave, he snags my leg with his cool hand. Long fingers wrap near my ankle because he's still lying down. He hasn't been upright this whole damn time.

"You'll be back," he says.

"No." I can't. I won't.

"You will," he says.

I close my eyes, and for a moment he is in me again. He looks angry and confused but alive. Not a dreamy zombie. And maybe he could love me one day. It's possible.

"Oh yes you will," he sighs and then he is snoring for real.

I touch him one more time and when I do, I know he's right. But it was supposed to be just for tonight.

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