had someone to hold me, and I woke up this morning to find that it had all been a lie. I’m going to hate any happy lovers for a while.”
“We all woke to find one of our lovers had betrayed our trust,” Jean-Claude said.
“But you have other lovers, Jean-Claude; I do not.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You are not monogamous any more than we are.”
“True, I have other lovers, and other play partners, but none of them are putting a ring on my finger. Asher was going to do that.”
We both stared at him. “He promised to marry you?” I asked.
He stared up at us with those big brown eyes, with the black tears of his smeared eyeliner framing them. The white sheets had swirled around his upper body like rumpled wings fallen to earth. If angels could have mornings after full of regret, they might look like that.
Of course, angels probably didn’t cry black tears; that would probably be the other guys, if either angels or demons cried physical tears. If the real angel I’d seen cried anything, it would have been tears of fire. I guess the demon might have cried physical tears, but I’d been too busy quoting Bible verses at him to ask.
“Oh, mon ami, I am so sorry.”
“Don’t pity me, Jean-Claude, help me make him sorry.”
“What would you have of us?”
“You talked me out of killing either of them. I wouldn’t miss Kane.”
“But Asher would not let his death stand, and we would miss him,” Jean-Claude said.
“Eventually,” Narcissus said.
Jean-Claude wisely let that go. “You do not wish to tie yourself to us for the sake of revenge, Narcissus.”
“I would tie myself to you, Jean-Claude, but you don’t want to play ‘tie me up, tie me down’ anymore.”
“Not with you, no.”
Narcissus looked at me. “Asher says you like rough trade, snicker-doodle, do you want to come play?”
“Don’t call me that, and I’ve heard your idea of rough trade and I don’t play that rough.”
“Asher says you do, snookums.”
I just looked at him, all irritating and disheveled in the bed. “Don’t call me that, either. I’m pretty sure you and I wouldn’t match any better in the dungeon than we do in the bedroom.”
“Maybe, or maybe we could both learn a few new tricks, cupcake.” He sounded tired as he said it, so the teasing was softened.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. “Okay, angel, show me a new trick.”
“Am I your angel?”
“A fallen one, maybe,” I said.
He smiled, sudden and happy. “Say it.”
“Say what?” I asked.
“Your nickname for me.”
“Angel?” I made it a question.
“Not quite,” he said, moving around in the covers so that they started sliding below his waist.
“Ma petite, think upon the last few minutes and you will know what he wants you to call him.”
I thought, and was about to ask for more of a clue, when I got it, or thought I got it. “Fallen angel, you’re my fallen angel.”
“I like it,” he said, and used one hand to jerk the covers off him and out of my hands, so that both of us were suddenly exposed. Narcissus lay back smirking, revealed in all his glory, fallen or otherwise.
53
JUST LYING THERE on the bed, legs together, he didn’t look that different from most men. If I’d seen him nude in the locker room, I’d have just kept walking past him, but I wasn’t supposed to keep moving past; I was supposed to do a hell of a lot more than just look at him. It was a little like going into the produce section and fondling the fruit and veggies; was it ripe, would it be sweet, was it too soft, too ripe, firm enough, but not too firm? Except this veg was looking back at me with serious attitude.
“Well?” he said, and that one word was so defiant that it instantly made me want to snap back.
Jean-Claude touched my shoulder. “Do not let his defiance bring your own, ma petite.”
I looked at him, sighed, and turned back to Narcissus. He was almost glaring at me now. I wasn’t sure if it was Jean-Claude’s thought or mine, but I realized that the other man was so sure I’d reject him that he was trying to give me a reason to do it that wouldn’t be about his physicality. It was like someone who is so used to being made fun of that they say the mean things first, try to make it their joke, so the bullies don’t get a chance to cut them