Bad Wrong Things

by C.P. Harris

Reflecting back on it, what we did couldn’t qualify as lovemaking. Clint and I were like hot oil kissing water. Gasoline crooking its finger at an open flame. We came together like animals in heat, marking and pissing over our territory. And love had everything, yet nothing, to do with it.

I stood there confident in knowing that the worst mistake I’d ever taken part in was the best decision of my life. I need to get out of here.

because everything I owned reminded me of him. Because what I owned he owned, too, because he owned me.

“You were gone. I couldn’t find you. I didn’t know if you were okay.” “I left—” “No. Leaving and being gone are not the same,” he said, leaving no room for argument. “I couldn’t find you. Do you know what that did to me?”

“No doesn’t hold the same meaning for us, Raven. You know that. But this time, this time, I’ll believe you if you want me to. If you say it again.”

“Promise me. And if you can’t promise me all those things, then please, lie to me.” Never breaking promises was a cardinal rule ingrained in me, and I didn’t want to lock myself into saying something I’d regret come escape time. “Yes, you fucking own me, Clint.” I gave him a different truth. It was the best I could do. “And no one fucks me like you do.” I scraped a nail along his jaw. “I’ve missed you so much I’ve gone blind. Feeling my way through life. My senses are fucked, Clint. Nothing looks the same since you, nothing smells or tastes the same. The world is bland.” But I can’t stay.

No never stopped us. Especially not after we’d decided that turning ourselves into monsters would be the only way to cope with the pain. To be more deserving of it.

My emotions never got involved. Besides, the part of me that mattered most was chained and secured with a padlock, and only one person held the key.

He sagged, and I stood and jerked myself off because I never came while he fucked me, and I never got myself off while he was going limp inside me. It was my number one rule. A line I never crossed.

I was working on a new design. An Archangel with Clint’s likeness I planned on getting inked across my left flank and rib cage.

“You’re so fucking territorial, Raven. When are you going to grow out of that shit?”

Fuck, I mouthed over a forkful of eggs. Yeah, my territorial behavior stemmed from not wanting to lose Clint, but not in the way Joey thought. I was in love with him. With the straight man that took me in and saw me as a son. And I wanted to scalp every slut that got to ride his cock. “Don’t say anything, alright?”

If Clint couldn’t grow old and gray with me, then I wanted him to do it alone. He was ours, but really, he was mine, and it would take an exorcism to rid me of my obsession with him.

I bet I could bring out the beast in him, I’d thought arrogantly. I swore if I ever got the chance to, I wouldn’t stop until we were stripped of everything but our fucking need to have and be had by one another.

“You used to call me Dad. Took you a while, and I didn’t make a big deal about it when you first said it because I didn’t want you to take it back, but damn, did it hurt in the best of ways.” He hit me with a side glance. “And then one day you stopped. Out of nowhere. And that hurt, too, but in the worst of ways.”

“Let me be your friend, Clint, and I’ll let you be mine.” “Friends.” He tasted the word. “I’ve been a father for twenty-two years. Is there a book on how to turn that killer protective instinct off and become a friend?” “I don’t know. If not, we can write it. Together.”

“Promise me something.” “Anything,” I swore, placing a hand over my heart to seal the oath. “Promise me you’ll think about yourself for a change.”

I would ride for infinite days and nights to not lose the weight of his arms around me, choking my waist as his laugh rang into the air whizzing past us. It was the soundtrack to my fantasies, and if given the choice, I’d play it on repeat all fucking day.

wanted to barter with time, to make it stand still because soon his gray eyes would blend into the night’s black cloak, and we’d have to leave this place. Our place.

“I don’t think a relationship is in the cards for me, Clint.” “Why not?” “My heart’s already spoken for,”

“I’ve been taking up all your spare time.” “I don’t mind,” I said, unable to read him. “But I should.” That was akin to him saying he didn’t give a shit about consuming all my time, consuming me. My translation might have been a stretch, but so what? And I loved it more than I should have. I’d lie at his feet without food and water while he did whatever he fucking pleased with me.

I want to know what’s been haunting you for the last six years.” Six years. “I want to be seen for who I really am and loved for it anyway.”

“Is that a yes?” He beamed over at me, and damn him for finding my company so appealing. “It’s always a yes, Clint. Always.”

“Does being happy you couldn’t sleep make me a bad person? I could use the company.” “It makes you my person.

A wall wouldn’t be enough. I needed Clint seared into my flesh. I wanted to pay tribute to him with my body. I wanted him with me forever.

I jumped back. “Do not pick me up,” I cautioned with my hands outstretched. “Not unless you plan on fucking me against a wall.” Clint’s sharp intake of air said all it needed to. I’d voiced that out loud. I’d done it again. Fuck.

He captivated me, a worm baited on his hook, and keeping him clueless was the equivalent of smiling while getting your ass kicked. A fucking struggle.

“I want to know you.” “You know me.” “I want to know you more.”

“How about Raven’s Wing?” “Hair the color of a Raven’s Wing, eyes the color of glaciers,” he whispered. “You remember,” I said, brows reaching for the sky. “I remember everything you say to me, Clint.”

“Too bad. I kinda like the idea of you wanting to be my only friend. Aside from Joey, of course.”

searchingly. “You being territorial over me feeds my need to be loved or some shit.” “Is that with everyone or just me?” I leaned my hip into the counter. “Just you. Fuck everyone else.”

music fell under the realm of art, to be interpreted by the listening ear, then the lyrics spoke of unrequited love. About the wickedness of one falling for their object of desire, when the desired couldn’t fall in return. And all I kept thinking as it played on a loop in my room, and then in my nightmares, was who did I have to hunt and kill?

“Say something, Clint.” Don’t let this be the last of us. “Don’t allow me to leave here believing you were a lie. Believing I’d imagined you.”

“I’m in love with you,” I said. “I’ve been in love with you since I was seventeen—”

“All of the goddamn above! I was shamefaced and angry at myself for wanting you. Pissed because you being with a man is wrong, if that man isn’t me. Jealous because the only set of hands that should be setting your body on fire are mine.”

chest. “I wanted to rip his fucking tongue out and spank you for being such a whore.”

“This is how I want you, Clint. Unrestrained, callous, and unconcerned with consequences.”

Operation get Clint to fuck me and fall in love was in full effect.

The house sat on a lake that put ours to shame. Ours. I’d subconsciously thought of everything now as ours. Except him. My brain stored him under mine.

“Waiting for you to find me.” He slid his hands in the side pockets of his sweats. “They don’t mind being chased, but I’ve learned chasing you only makes you run faster.” “Is that so?”

“What do you want, Clint?”

“My head wants its cozy spot back in the sand. I want to know what I did, the second I did it, to make your feelings toward me change. I want to say I’m sorry for it. And I want… I want you, Raven.”

“Why are you so afraid to try?” “Because it’ll feel too good. Because it’s been too long, and I won’t want it to stop. And I know you won’t stop me. You won’t hold me accountable. And when it all goes bad—” “If…” “It always does, Raven. It always does. I can’t lose my son, and I can’t lose you. Because that’s the same as losing me.”

“You’re an addict’s worst nightmare,”

“That depends on what he’s addicted to.”

“What are you addicted to, Clint?” “Self-destruction, apparently,”

Passion isn’t a bad thing. Use it. Use it on me. It’s what I feel for you. It’s

“How long have you had this?” “About a month.” With a finger to my chin, he brought my face to his. “I fucking love you, Clint. And if you’re brave enough to let me show you, I promise I’ll never stop.”

“How can you be so sure you’re in love with me?” “Because it’s been six years. That’s seventy-two months, one-hundred and ninety-two hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-eight seconds, and I still haven’t been able to talk myself out of it.

I lowered to his mouth, intending on a chaste kiss, but Raven had other plans, and before long we were all spit-slicked lips and panting breaths.