The Drazen World: LUST (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

  I’ve heard Monica tell me so many times that I almost believe I’d seen it myself, the memory is so vivid.

  “Mon,” I whisper, my hand coming to rest between her shoulder blades.

  She mumbles something incoherent into the countertop.

  “Who are all these people, Mon?” I ask, because maybe that will distract her enough to sit up and talk to me.

  That works. She sits up straight, an improvement. But now she’s avoiding my eye.

  “Oh god. They’re his, aren’t they?” I grimace. That new boyfriend of hers. The ridiculously wealthy one. The one who’s already managed to get my best friend’s picture plastered all over the tabloids.

  “I didn’t ask him,” she protests, finally meeting my gaze. It’s hard to stay mad at her, though, when I see my same pain reflected in her eyes.

  Gabby wasn’t just my sister, not really. She lived with Monica for years, in this house where Monica grew up. She was half the reason Monica and I stayed together as long as we did, letting our relationship slowly fizzle out instead of breaking up the moment we both realized it was over. We didn’t want to upset Gabby.

  Gabs was Monica’s sister too.

  “He just volunteered?” I lift an eyebrow. “I don’t want you owing him something on account of us. Me,” I stammer, after a moment, remembering. It’s just me now.

  “No strings attached.” She shakes her head, hair flying. “You misjudge him, Darren. He’s not the asshole you think he is.”

  I wait for the nearest caterers to stop side-eying us curiously, wait until the kitchen is almost clear of people, before I lean in to speak under my breath. “He’s trying to dominate you, Mon. He said as much. That sounds like classic asshole to me.”

  “It’s not, though.” She swallows hard, leans her forehead against mine. “It freaked me out at first, yeah. That was the last time I talked to you about it, I know. But …” Her eyes flash to mine, steady and serious. “It’s not like I imagined. Not at all. It’s not about debasing me or proving he’s better or stronger than me. It’s …”

  I wait for her to finish, but another surge of people roll into the kitchen, directors this time, from the looks of it, ordering their employees to put which flowers where, reviewing seating arrangements for all 100 people who we’re planning on showing.

  “Let’s go outside for a minute,” I suggest, taking Monica’s hand and gently tugging her off the stool.

  She lets me lead her through the house, back out the front door, and a little ways up the street. Only when we’re half a block away from that house full of memories do I finally feel like I can breathe again.

  “It was getting cramped in there,” I tell Monica by way of explanation, when she raises an eyebrow at me curiously. I don’t really want to talk about how her house now makes me feel so claustrophobic I could scream. How every room in there sends a million mental images of my sister flickering through my skull. “Anyway. You were trying to explain how being bossed around by a guy is actually secretly a good thing, I think.”

  She swats my arm with a huff. “It’s not … Okay, yeah, he does boss. In bed. Well, and in wherever we’re fucking. But not outside of … y’know, wherever we’re having sex.” She pushes her hair behind her ear. “I know you don’t approve, but honestly, it’s so … freeing. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to hold onto my control over the world, so tight that my hands hurt from gripping it. Letting go, giving someone else the wheel for a change, it lets me focus on my pleasure, instead of constantly wondering if he’s enjoying himself as much as I am—I know he is, since he’s in control. And … I don’t know, it lets me lose track of the world. The same way music does, how it carries us to another plane.”

  We both wince. Those were Gabby’s words. Gabby’s sentiments about music, the way it transported her to some world beyond this earth, far away from her overactive brain, and the cyclical depression that seized hold of her in regular intervals, worsening every time, until it finally won.

  “It’s been helping me deal,” she admits in a low murmur. “I don’t know if that’s … weird or whatever. But right now, I need to not be here sometimes, I need to not think sometimes, and singing feels wrong, impossible, without her on the keys backing me up. So …”

  I nod. I understand. I really, really do. I’d give anything to be able to check out of my skull for a brief vacation right about now.

  Unbidden, a memory of the dim, cool cathedral rises in my mind. For a second, it seems like I can feel the ghost of the priest’s hand wrapped around mine, his thumb caressing my skin, steady and sure. I glance down at our laps, and this time, I don’t run when I see the pressure bulging at both of our clothes. I reach across to his lap, press my hand hard against his thick

  cock …

  “Darren,” Monica repeats. I’m not sure how many times she’s said it.

  “Sorry, what did you say?” I ask, shaking the half-memory, half-fantasy from my mind.

  She smirks, just a little bit. It’s the first almost-smile I’ve seen on her face in two days. Ever since I woke her up to come to the morgue with me, unable to face it alone.

  “What?” I lift an eyebrow at her.

  “Who were you thinking about?”

  “Nobody,” I snap, too fast, too guiltily. “What makes you think I was thinking about anybody.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Darren. How long have I known you?”

  I clamp my mouth shut. Point. But there’s no use talking about the church. I’m never going back there. There was nothing for me there, no solace from the cross or the choir or the murmured prayers.

  Nothing but the hottest guy you’ve ever laid eyes on holding your hands in the dark, my traitor brain reminds me.

  Doesn’t matter. I could never have him. Even if he wanted me as much as the tent in his pants suggested, he’s a damn priest, for crying out loud. It’s been a long time since I attended Catholic school, but I’m pretty sure I remember that golden rule: priests can’t have sex.

  Especially not with another man.

  Better to think about Adam. Adam, who still hasn’t called, or even responded to my text about Gabby, the morning it happened.

  On second thought, fuck Adam. I need a new boy toy.

  “Just some guy I met at the club,” I tell Monica, leading her back toward the house now.

  “When? What happened to Adam?” She jogs after me. In her defense, given that I only came out to her a couple of weeks ago, Mon has been taking this all pretty easily in stride.

  “Nothing happened to him.” I shrug. “That’s the problem. He never even acknowledged my message about Gabby. Didn’t offer to help with the wake, nada.” I wave a hand vaguely toward the house, where Monica’s boyfriend of only slightly longer is currently paying God-knows-how-much for a girl he didn’t even know, because he sees that Monica is hurting.

  I don’t need a sugar daddy, but some damn sympathy would be nice. “Maybe I am wrong about Jonathan,” I admit in a low voice. Monica glances at me, eyes wide with surprise. I smile down at her. “After all, my taste in men is clearly worse.”

  Chapter Three

  I stand in the front pew, my back rigid, poised between our parents. If I close my eyes, I can pretend it’s any other church, any other service. I can remember the old days, when Gabby and I bent our heads together over the kneelers and folded the church bulletins into paper planes.

  I can pretend she’s still standing here with the rest of her family, Mom on my left, Dad on my right, and Monica and Jonathan to his right.

  I can pretend that’s not her coffin up at the front of the church, poised in front of the altar, drowning in flowers. I can pretend Mom didn’t choose the worst picture of her, a smiling, cheesy school portrait from senior year of high school, old enough that it doesn’t even look like the Gabby I knew in recent years.

  Recent Gabby was thinner, with shorter hair, faint lines around her eyes despite the fact that she was only 24, and an intense, deep look in her ey
e that would stop anyone looking at her in their tracks.

  She was also sadder. It wasn’t a mood. More like a cloud that followed everywhere she went, affecting not only her but anyone else in its path.

  I feel the shadow of that mood now, looming over this whole cathedral. Naturally, Mom and Dad wanted to hold the service in the church we used to attend as a family, but so soon after my last … encounter, here, it’s making me nervous just to stand in this space again.

  Then the organ starts to play, accompanied by the soft voices of the choir singing the processional hymn. I turn, unable to resist, hoping that I won’t see what I’m afraid I’ll see.

  But there he is. Dressed in full regalia now, staff in hand, leading the procession of altar boys and girls up the central nave of the church.

  For a second, his green eyes find mine. If he’s surprised to see me, he doesn’t let it show at all. In fact, the corner of his mouth turns up in the slightest, knowing smile, and I swear I feel the reverberation of that stare like a jolt that passes all the way down into my cock.

  I grind my molars together, fists tight at my sides. I just need to make it through this mass. One service. I can do that.

  I tear my eyes from his and face front again.

  But of course, the universe can’t take pity on me today. “Father Kendrick is such a sweet man,” my mother murmurs into my ear. “He spent all morning praying with your father and I, asking for details about Gabby.” Her voice chokes off for a moment, and I reach up to squeeze her shoulder gently. “I’m so grateful he agreed to perform her service for us.”

  If only you knew what other services I’d like to see him perform. I choke down a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter.

  It’s an exquisite kind of torture to watch Father Kendrick in his element. I pay attention to the mass in a way I never have before, captivated by the way he moves, so self-assuredly, so confidently. Dimly, somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this, about him, about how badly I want to fuck him, right now.

  But maybe it’s like Monica said. Sex helps her deal. No, not just sex. Forgetting herself, letting someone else take control.

  Being dominated.

  And fuck, I can tell Father Kendrick would know exactly how to make me lose control.

  In lieu of a sermon, he talks about Gabby, her life and her music and accomplishments. He speaks so warmly and with such emotion that I almost forget he didn’t know her himself. All around me, people are tearing up, clutching handkerchiefs. But for once, I don’t need to fight the urge to let tears spill. For once I feel, if not okay, then at least the hint of the idea that one day I might be okay again.

  Then it’s time for communion.

  Technically, I shouldn’t go, since it’s been God only knows how long since my last confession. But then I watch him break the bread over the altar, his full, luscious lips rounding as he speaks. “Take this bread and eat it, for it is my body, which has been given up for you.” I swear in that moment, his eyes find mine across the nave of the church, steady and sure. The world around us narrows, and it seems like he’s speaking directly to me.

  Take this and eat it. Oh, Father, you know I will take anything you want to give me.

  So when our pew rises, and he steps down from the altar to stand at the head of the church, I stand too, trailing after the others in our pew. One at a time, the handful of people before me bow their heads, lift their hands to receive the communion wafer.

  But there are two ways to receive the wafer.

  When it’s my turn, I lift my head to meet those sea green eyes head-on, and he lifts the wafer too, saying the blessing, though my blood is thrumming so hard in my ears at being this close to him, that I almost can’t hear him.

  “Amen,” I whisper, and he keeps the wafer aloft, ignoring my outstretched hands, folded one across the other. For a split second, I don’t understand. Then his lips part, ever so slightly, and I realize he’s giving me a silent command.

  I lean forward, our faces a breath apart, and open my mouth. He places the wafer directly on my tongue, and a burst of heat floods my body, centered right on my crotch. But I can’t move. I’m frozen in place, the world seemingly gone still around us, as he slowly, slowly withdraws his finger from my mouth, trailing it along the tip of my tongue, catching my lip and letting the tip of his finger brush the inside of my lip faintly, his fingernail tapping against my gum for an instant. The communion wafer has hardly any taste itself, so my entire mouth is flooded with his flavor. Salty, spicy, reminiscent of that woody scent he wears, which I can catch faintly even from here, even amidst the incense and myrrh flooding the church.

  Then his hand drops, and he lifts his eyes away from mine, easily, as though he’s unaffected, as though it’s so simple for him to move on after that.

  But I can tell, from one glance at his thick vestments, that he’s not completely unaffected. Though, at least in these loose flowing robes, he’s a lot less obvious than he was when he was wearing tight black pants.

  My pew is only a few feet away, but I can already tell it’s going to be a long, painful walk back. My cock swells in my suit pants, straining at the seams, heavy as a lead weight between my legs. My head swims a little, as though all of the blood in my body has abandoned it, headed south for hotter climates.

  I skip the wine. I want to taste him on my tongue for as long as the flavor will last.

  I retake my seat cross-legged, feeling vulnerable and exposed. Can anyone else see? What will they think? It’s my sister’s funeral service, after all. What the hell is wrong with me?

  And yet, despite the fact that I should care about those things, I can’t bring myself to. This is the first time since I woke up to that awful sound of my phone buzzing, the police at the other end, ready to shatter my world, that I’ve felt anything resembling a hint of peace. If this is what it takes to be okay again, to eventually move on from this, then I’ll take it.

  Monica rests a hand on my arm as she slides back into the pew beside me. “He’s hot as hell.” She bobs her head toward the front of the church, grinning mischievously. “I think Gabby would appreciate that, don’t you?” Her eyes sparkle, as if she knows, though of course, she couldn’t possibly.

  But that’s Monica for you. More than my ex, more than my best friend. She’s my other sister. The only one I have left now. I reach for her hand and grip her fingers tightly. “Gabby would definitely approve of a hot priest presiding over her funeral,” I murmur.

  We share a tiny, weak smile for the first time in days.

  Chapter Four

  Monica’s place is packed. I knew it would be crowded—a hundred people is a lot for a two-bedroom house on the outskirts of town here, tiny as it is—but it’s worse than I imagined. I’m pretty sure there are more people than we planned for, too. A few people turn up from the bars where we’ve played, patrons and servers alike.

  “We always loved her music,” a pair of girls I’ve never seen before tell me with a sigh, and I realize that maybe, Gabby wasn’t so far off from achieving her dreams as we thought. She never reached national fame, she never got a record recorded and played over the radio the way she dreamed about, or performed concerts in huge, packed venues. But she touched a lot of people in L.A. with her music. Local people, bartenders and waitresses, but also aspiring actors and musicians and screenwriters in their own right.

  Gabby was one of the stars of L.A., our own little secret that we never got to share with the wider world. Maybe, in the end, that makes her all the more cherished.

  Then I catch sight of Vinny, our insufferable fucking asshole of a manager, and any attempt at feeling better about all of this collapses around me. Who am I fucking kidding? That man stood in the way of her, stomped on her dreams. Sent her away so Monica could audition for her big break solo, not that I blame Mon for taking the audition, but it was the last straw, the push that sent my sister tumbling over the edge.

  And I wasn’t there to catch her.
I let her fall into that dark ocean, so numbed up on alcohol and pills that the seawater filled her lungs in a heartbeat. She never had a chance, my Gabby. And that’s down to me, in the end.

  She never achieved her dreams because I let her down. She’s dead because I let her down.

  Who the fuck do I think I am, trying to find peace here? Today, of all days?

  I storm through the crowd, suddenly claustrophobic, unable to breathe. My body is all pent-up, vibrating energy, anger white-hot in my veins. But much as I hate Vinny, much as I hate any of the other fake producers or schmoozing talent managers weaving through the thick crowd here, grazing on the free food like the scavengers they are, the person I really hate is me.

  And I can’t exactly punch myself in the face, now can I?

  I muscle my way into the backyard, ignoring a few gasps of protest as I elbow some asshole blocking the door out of my way. I don’t give a fuck right now. Just try and stop me.

  I’m halfway across the yard, fists balled at my sides, when I hear a gasp. Crying? I slow my pace a little. The yard isn’t as crowded as the house—maybe the asshole blocking the door is stemming off the crowd a little bit. There’s a couple people dotted here and there, mostly smoking, both cigarettes and some stank-ass weed, from the scent of it. Well, whatever works for them, I think, half debating asking for a hit myself. But weed has never really been my drug of choice. Just makes me pass out, and while that’s tempting right now, it doesn’t seem fair of me to fall asleep and miss all this fucking knife-sharp pain that I deserve to suffer.

  There’s another gasp. Coming from around the back of the yard, against a cinderblock wall that half-hid the house from view. In front of the wall was a little row of bushes Gabby planted a couple years ago, I remember with a pang. I wander toward them, ready to ask whoever it is if they need anything, a handkerchief or a drink or maybe a hit of those people on the other side of the yard’s weed. There’s a little bench behind the bushes, I remember, a quiet corner that Gabby wanted for herself, which was why she planted the bushes in the first place, to give her the illusion of privacy in a world that couldn’t stop following her everywhere she went.