Skye Warren - Short Smut, Vol. 1

I moaned with the joy of knowing I had pleased him, and his cock surged. This time, his cum tasted sweet, and again I licked every drop from him.

He fell beside me exhausted. “I’m going to ask Darius to keep an eye on you while I’m away,” he said. “I’m sure the smell of my blood has aroused a few of my children. Don’t worry, there are none here that would be a match for either of you.”

“But aren’t your other children older than me?”

He stood up and walked into a closet. “They were not made by me. They feed from mortals as well.” He came out carrying clean clothes. “Vampire blood is stronger. Darius is strong because I feed him.” He put on a loincloth and then his pants. “No mortal blood will touch your lips either, my love.”

My heart fluttered at the endearment.

“Yes, you are to be my love.” He hit a button on an intercom. “Darius, I need you seated outside my room”

“Yes, Jafari,” it crackled in reply.

“Sleep until I return. You will need your rest.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Some empty place where people go to be alone,” he said, kissing my cheek.

“ Come back soon,” I said, gripping his hand. When he left, I cried myself to sleep. In my dreams, the statues came alive to clasp me in their arms.

What Is

“ So that's it then? After five years of epic friendship and a relationship we both thought was it, you're done? What about the promises? Is forever just a word to you?” The fight deflates from Chris's voice like an airbag, pillowy and pathetic after the thunderclap of impact.

“ I'm not the only one who made promises, and you know it. We fight too much. I can't do it anymore. What do you want from me, Chris?” Nick's voice is dead, detached. It stings.

I want you to want. To say the words “I love you, I won't leave you.” Chris's full lips form a tight line, betraying him one last time, his striking blue eyes averting. He wants to, but can't say it. The bubble of need fills his chest, but the explosion he craves?to say that which will lay him out for Nick to see?instead caroms in his veins and pierces his heart. Pain mushrooms when the last lingering vestiges of hope in Nick's usually warm brown eyes dies, an emotional detonation that leaves him cold and apocalyptic as Nick's footsteps fade down the hall. The front door opens, and then closes gently.

You could have at least slammed the door, Chris snarls in his head. Endings should be more than the quiet snick of a door latch.

The dotted line looms, mocking Nick. Pen scrawling, it feels like he's signing the end of all things, agreeing to this arrangement though it's the last thing he wants. Still, the pen flourishes with a mind of its own, convincing him this is how it has to be. He stands, shakes the landlord's hand, and passes back the lease agreement. Six months. He sublet his last place when he moved in with Chris, and it feels wrong to go back on that word, kicking his friend out.

Even though Chris went back on his word to me.

He sits in his car, the air conditioner blowing in his face, cooling the hot anger spilling down his cheeks. A hitch of a breath to shore himself up and he drives to Chris's place, boxes in his back seat ready to be filled. He's packing up the shards of a life he never thought would shatter. The dotted line with his signature feels like a divorce, the final necessary gavel. And why not? He'd committed that far in his heart even if they'd never had a ceremony. Might as well be divorce papers.

The gaps in the bookshelf feel like bullet holes, the space in the closet like an open grave inviting him to tumble in headfirst. Chris will have to figure out how to live in his house again. He tells himself it'll be good, that he can leave his books all over the place and won't feel guilty if he doesn't go through the mail every single day. He can drink the OJ straight out of the carton. He never did mind his own backwash.

What he doesn't expect is the empty space where Buster's pillow was in the corner of the living room, or how his head gets cold at night without Nick's cat encroaching on his pillow space. He has to stop listening to music to fall asleep because he ends up leaking tears into his pillow, the memory of the songs a road map of Nick's bare skin, their love life. It's not even his pillow he's crying on. It's Nick's, and he switched them so he could keep Nick's smell in his dreams. But his tears, they'll wash that away. He'll never feel the same way about Enya again. As good as it is to sleep to, he just can't.

Daylight chases away the worst of it. He manages to work. He smiles when he's supposed to. He chuckles. Full out laughs are out of his reach, but he's getting there. He can feel it. Then he wonders if Nick is laughing yet and his gut clenches. The first few times he thought of how Nick might be feeling, he had to duck into a bathroom and puke. So he wills himself to forget the way Nick's voice rings out when he laughs and wheezes into silence when he laughs hard. The crinkle in the corners of his eyes when he smiles, and how his dark hair falls across his forehead, not quite in his eyes. The breathless noise he makes during a climax. Chris categorizes the bigger things as self-preservation forgetting, and it feels like a betrayal to the best thing that ever happened to him. Though it pains him, he lets them go, like lit Chinese lanterns floating out to sea, prayers that maybe in some dimension, what he's letting go will be found and cherished by another-Chris of another-Nick, saved somewhere since this-Chris can no longer keep them.

What Was

“ Could you be more of an asshole?” Chris storms into the house, tossing his keys in the general direction of the key peg, not caring when they hit the floor. Just another thing for Nick to roll his eyes at, the nick on the hardwood. It's my goddamned house! Why do you care if I scuff my floors? Followed by, when did I stop thinking of it as 'our' house?

“ I'm sorry, but you cannot tell me that question about that famous photographer, Joe McWhatever, wasn't ignorant bullshit specifically pointed at Randy. Yes, he's full of himself, but who isn't when they're proud of their talent? I seem to recall a certain swaggering Marine Corps captain role you landed that made you insufferable for weeks, barking orders at me and demanding push-ups. You don't have to be an ass to my friends.” Nick kicks his shoes off and picks them up, padding in stocking feet to the bedroom to put them away in the closet.

I wanted to watch your arm muscles, because you're so beautiful. Chris glares and toes off his own shoes, leaving them in the living room right where he knows Nick walks to sit on the couch.

Nick comes back to find him snapping the cap off another beer and drinking in the open door of the fridge. “You're wasting energy.”

“ So? I pay the power bill.”

“ Just because you can pay for it means you should waste it?” Nick shakes his head and walks out of the room.

“ Can I do anything right?” Chris yells at his back.

“ You can start by closing the fridge and keeping your mouth shut about Randy if you don't have anything nice to say.” Nick's voice is faint, and Chris hears the click of the bathroom door when Nick disappears for his nightly face ritual. The man is obsessed with his skin, convinced it will keep him aging well and landing movie roles well into middle age. His name is big enough that it's not arrogance to hope.

Chris talks to the closed door, head bowed, trying to keep his voice from rising. “The photographer question was a legitimate effort to understand where Randy was coming from. I can't help it if his theory on off-camera lighting placement differs from something I read about another photographer doing. I was trying to understand the difference between the two methods, not make it look like Randy was blowing shit out his ass. Which he clearly was. I didn't make him look like an idiot. He did that all by himself.”