Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“Can you not stay still?” Nero asked, trying to identify smaller cuts with the help of the flashlight. They didn’t seem to be as numerous as he’d feared, so he went right ahead and pulled a green shard from Miguel’s flesh. It unplugged the cut, and a red streak drizzled across the skull’s left eye.
Nero whistled. “Whoa, hope I won’t bleed you out like a little calf, huh?” he asked and slapped Miguel’s hip.
Miguel shook his head. “The Cannibal’s son after all. Give it to me,” he said and reached back, grabbing the phone out of Nero’s hand. Resting his elbows on the back of the chair, he held it above his hunched shoulder to illuminate his injuries.
Nero’s mouth soured, and he spat on the dusty floor as the flavor and scent of grilled meat came back to him, forced onto his tongue. Unsalted and dull, the memory of that sensation was never far off.
“There’s only one kind of human meat I want to have,” he said, coming back to the safety of sexual innuendo, because he figured it would shut Miguel up.
“This again?” Miguel grumbled, going rigid when Nero removed more shards from his flesh. “This is what got you in tonight’s mess in the first place. You’re Nero fucking Moreno. You could have any dick, but you sleep around with every piece of trash you encounter!”
Nero stalled, moving his fingers over the hot, damp skin in search of smaller pieces of glass. “Oh, you care who fucks me?”
Miguel huffed, and as he rested his forehead on the back of the chair, the parting of his tightly braided black hair drew in Nero’s gaze. “It’s just… Guess it would make my life easier if you chose better men.”
Nero sighed, focusing on the delicious chevron of skin cutting into the hair at Miguel’s nape. “There are no good men. They all want something, and most can’t be trusted. Might as well fuck each one I like.”
“Doesn’t it make you feel… dirty?”
This had to be one of the deepest conversations they’d had. Maybe it was just easier for Miguel to voice such intimate questions when they couldn’t look into each other’s eyes?
Was that how Miguel felt about his own attraction to men, which at this point was painfully obvious to Nero? Did he see it as dirty? Closeted men created so many problems in their own heads.
“Yeah, but that’s some of the fun. I know they either fear me, or want something from me, or hate me, but I still get what I want. I might be their bitch for half an hour, but they know they’ll never be the real boss. And they resent it,” Nero said, taking the cell phone from Miguel’s grip to scan the injured back a final time. It seemed he’d extracted all the shards.
Miguel pondered his words in silence filled only with shivery breaths. “You like being fucked by men who hate you? But you… open up to them.”
Clearly not an expert in gay sex then.
Nero sighed and unscrewed the cap on the vodka bottle before taking a swig. The biting liquor swirled in his mouth, wiping away the flavor of phantom meat. “I learned my lesson early. Fell really hard for one of Father’s men. I kept embarrassing myself, and pining for him. I even fucking made him sandwiches once—everything to let him know I was interested without actually saying it. He took the hint. First fucked me, then fucked me over, telling everyone what happened. Until that day, I kept my feelings for men a secret, but then everyone found out, including Father.”
Raul Moreno had not been understanding. Nor kind.
“So I took my gun and shot him in the face,” Nero finished, pouring the booze over fresh wounds without warning, because seeing someone else in pain always eased the burn of Nero’s memories.
Miguel screamed out and held on to the chair as if it were his lifeline.
“S-so you used to have a heart,” he eventually rasped as Nero patted the vodka-soaked cuts with clean paper tissues from his pocket.
“Having a heart is overrated. I was fifteen and knew everyone would loathe me from that point on. Thought it’s better to give them an actual reason,” Nero said and took a gulp of the remaining liquor before offering the rest to Miguel.
“You know I don’t hate you because you’re gay, right?” Miguel said in a voice that was surprisingly soft and pulled on the cobwebs that had grown over the place in Nero’s chest where there used to be a heart. But what remained of it was protected by electrified wire, which jolted him back to normalcy.
“I don’t think you hate me at all, Miguel. If you did, you would have let Juan end me tonight,” Nero whispered.
When some more blood drizzled down Miguel’s back, Nero picked up the discarded top and dabbed it against the skin.