Bad Wrong Things

by C.P. Harris

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.

“Don’t do this, Raven. Not again.” “You know how this ends, Clint.” “Then let it end that way, damn it.” He pressed into me. “I’m not the same man you left, Raven. I promise I’m not. But you’ll have to put me down first if you plan on leaving me like that 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.

Who were we kidding? 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.

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

Clint didn’t love me in the way I loved him, and therefore, he’d never truly see me because there’d always be a part of me hidden from him.

I was changing. For the good or the truly damnable remained to be seen. The more I thought of him as a friend, the less inclined I felt to see him as family. The more-or-less situation created a space where considering something other with him had little to do with how ambiguous my morals were. It felt justifiable.

“You being territorial over me feeds my need to be loved or some shit.”

“Both!” The side of his fist met the counter, rattling the dish rack. “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.”

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

“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 give up. Tell me you’ll throw in the towel, too.”

“The mouth and the heart are connected. That’s why words hurt. I’d never give either to anyone but you.”

“When the curve of your neck stopped being just the curve of your neck. When it became a place I wanted to bury my troubles away in. A place I hungered to breathe from. When the sun in my eyes stopped being a simple annoyance, but a plot of the universe to keep me from gazing at you. When seeing you do what you love stopped only being an inspiration of pride, but also an inspiration for my attraction.”

“That second and every second after,” he whispered. “Will the seconds ever end?” “When I take my last breath, and not even then.”

“Get used to those hickeys, sweetheart. From now on, they’ll be a permanent fixture. And don’t you dare try to hide them.” A storm of moisture gathered at the bend of my eyes. The carnality of his statement, in the form of a threat, was better than any flower bouquet or words of devotion. I wanted Clint wild-eyed for me. Crazed with horniness and jealousy. I wanted him to take and take until I was a tiny, invisible speck because he’d inhaled every drop of me. I wanted him to fucking shackle and vanquish and own me. I wanted him that far gone. I wanted him strapped to the seat next to me. I wanted him to come into the dark.

don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t fallen for me. I was at my breaking point with loving you.”

“I’ll always find you in the dark, Raven,”

Raven hid to be found. He ran to be caught.

“I love you, Raven,” I said before drifting off. “And I’ll forever find and catch you.”

“Bad things happen to me sometimes, and good things are taken away because of it. I just don’t know if you’re the good thing taken, or the bad-wrong-thing that’s happened to me.”

“I’ll never sacrifice you again. For nothing and no one. No one