Losers Part I

“If you can get through the night, you’ll see the sun again,” I said, repeating the words he’d told me back then. “Keep chasing the next sunrise.” I closed my eyes as I exhaled. “The night feels really fucking dark, Manson, but I’m still chasing sunrises.”

The control I was seeking in self- destruction was something I could find with him. Something I could trust him with. Sometimes, I needed someone to tell me when enough was enough before I tore myself into pieces.

I didn’t like change, and it seemed our lives had been in constant flux for so long now. It made me anxious, and when I got anxious, I withdrew. I pulled away from the very people I was closest to. Like I needed to punish myself for feeling anything at all.

He was right, we both needed to quit. But sometimes, when I saw him getting better, when I saw how hard he was trying to be a better man, I felt like I was being left behind. He was able to do what I couldn’t, and although he kept trying to drag me along with him, I still lived with the fear that eventually, he’d fix himself and I’d still be broken. Too broken for him, for any of them. We’d met each other at our lowest and risen out of that together. We’d been desperate back then, searching for any reason at all to keep going, and we’d found that in each other. How selfish was I to worry that he might not need me anymore?

I didn’t know if I wanted to spank her or fucking kiss her again. Probably both. Definitely both.

My mouth hung open for a moment. Had I passed out? Was I dreaming? Had Vincent put magic mushrooms in my breakfast again?

Manson had his pills, his therapy, his meditation and all that shit, but there was still something dark in him that would never quite go away. Something born because it had to be, and alive because nothing could kill it. That thing, that monster inside him, had gotten a taste of Jess and nothing else could satiate it.

“Why do we come to this shit?” Lucas muttered, puffing at his cigarette as he scanned the faces spread among the trees. “I fucking hate half the people here.”

“What about the other half?” Manson said, tossing a beer to me before opening one for himself. Lucas shook his head.

“Don’t like them either.”

Manson snorted. “Right. Let’s get some alcohol in you before you start shit.”

If a guy couldn’t play with my masochism as enthusiastically as he played with my pleasure, then I didn’t want it. There simply wasn’t a nice way to tell your mother that you wanted a guy who could spank you as well as he could fuck. A man who was as comfortable with whips and chains as he was at candlelit dinners. Someone who wasn’t afraid to take control but wasn’t going to make the relationship feel like a cage.

Quick to anger, slow to forgive, moody as hell. He was either horny enough to fuck night and day, or so withdrawn he didn’t even want to be touched.