Limey

Maybe he's a glutton for punishment; maybe he's got a fetish for abuse. He's never watched a bondage film in his life, but no one's ever doubted that a rope around his neck would make him cry out in pleasure in that limey little accent of his. They all know why he dates goths, but none of them know why he chooses to date the girls. Everyone knows who he's thinking about whenever he catches a glimpse of black hair.

Maybe it was just a schoolgirl crush, even if he was a schoolboy. He's always been a limey little queer.

They see the two of them sitting on one the park benches after school; she's smoking a fag and he's remembering one. She loves that lonely look on his face, and it's only a matter of moments before she's got her black-nailed fingers tangled up in his pale blonde hair, black-painted lips on his. Everyone knows he's going to close his eyes seconds before he does; he always closes his eyes when he's kissing girls. The girls think it's because he's polite, but everyone else knows it's because he needs to block her face out so he can replace it with a different one.

The boy he's picturing in his head only surfaced in the little mountain town twice, years ago, the length of each stay less than a week. But it was long enough to fall in love, if what he thinks is love really is. No one knows for sure; his responses were always too sincere, too passive, and they never thought him capable of real feelings. They imagined him turning out like this, getting taken advantage of by horny girls looking for a quick fuck.

They wonder if that girl knows she's the one getting taken advantage of.

Even as they head back to her house (her parents are out of town) he's wondering why the black-haired boy never stayed. He'd asked him to; the orphanage was hell and school was worse. It was boredom that drove him crazy more than anything else, which was what had attracted him to the trash talking eight-year-old anyway. He's never minded verbal or physical abuse, he's just wanted company. And he loved the power his acquaintance emitted, even when the flames of hell were scorching his own body.

Everyone knows that he secretly loved being hurt at his hands.

They can't watch the two anymore because they've closed the door and no one cares enough to try finding an open window; besides, it's not as though they don't already know what's going on. The gothic girl – her name is Cassie, they think – has pinned him to her couch, and is whispering something about getting a knife. (Maybe she's heard the rumors that blood is another fetish of the blonde.) And he's remembering the way Damien used to threaten him with the daggers he kept in his pockets. They're right.

She gets up and leaves for the kitchen, while he stretches out on the couch, dreaming of pale skin, black hair, and charcoal eyes that had once looked upon him without a trace of hatred. The same eyes had also scorched him and cast demons upon him, but pain was a small price to pay for pleasure. Or maybe pain was the pleasure itself. No one knows quite how it works with him.

A sudden sensation of cold metal on his wrists jerks the boy out of his futile reverie, and his eyes flutter open to see that she's tracing shallow crosses on his wrists. He laughs, which encourages her to continue, but when he closes his eyes as always he pretends that the crosses are pentagrams and that her perfume smells of brimstone instead of musk.

They've never understood how he could stand the smell, much less like it.

While she's unbuckling his belt he's remembering the way Damien once set a kid on fire for calling him a limey fag. While she's pulling his shirt over his head he's remembering the way Damien used to turn weak eyes to him when he was too ashamed to face anyone else. While she's tugging down his boxers he's remembering the way Damien sealed his infatuation by opening up a gateway to hell to impress Eric Cartman, through which demons spilt to torment and rape the screaming British boy. He hardens for all the wrong reasons.

Maybe her body is wrong, maybe her smell is wrong, maybe her screams should be a little deeper and her hands shouldn't be so soft, but the only one he's thinking of is him.

They wonder if the howling girl knows Pip Pirrip is really fucking the son of Satan.