Never Cover up What We Did With a Dress

Chesney Martin.

It felt as though my life had stopped, ending with the pain of a broken heart. I stood in the middle of the street, my tears sinking into the pavement mixed with the rain, watching emptily as Manson's car pulled off. I found myself thinking. I started remembering.

You know the cliché, possibly mock description of what people claim happens the second before you breathe your final breath, "my life and achievements flashed before my eyes"?

Well, my excuse of a life did flash before my eyes. It flashed in my mind, but mostly it flashed powerfully through my heart, because the biggest part of my life to date was Manson.

As a younger adolescent, he was desperate for sex but not from me. Maybe he was yearning for it from me but he would never admit it. I, on the other hand, was not in the least desperate for sex as I was getting it from every angle. Often Manson was frustrated at me for the amount I got compared to him. So, one day, John, an obnoxious jock who once hated Manson, and myself, set him up with Tina. She didn't have much going for her except her huge breasts and her willingness. Everything Manson needed and was capable of getting, she had.

Frantic and slightly obsessed with the possibility of getting laid, Manson happily accepted the fact that Tina would fuck him. So, on a bright, warm Tuesday afternoon, fueled by my own pep talk and the adrenaline of what he was about to do, Manson walked over to Tina and asked her to accompany him that night to the local park. She accepted with a warm smile, reflected from her fish-like face. Manson walked back to me with a broad smile on his face also. John walked up to us as we were talking, slapping Manson on the back as he said,

"So, Brian, fucked her yet?"

"Not yet," he replied, and I was fascinated at the way he said it, like he was much better than Tina, a human being with a much higher quality, like she was an object for him to use and throw away with out a mere second thought. Which in a way, she was. If Tina wasn't the kind of girl that just fucked anyone who wanted it, I would have stood up for her and shunned the spineless way these boys, my best friends, were discussing her. But she was the kind of girl who wanted a name for herself, a name like "the school's slut", and so I didn't bother.

For the rest of the day I felt slightly uncomfortable and unsettled, almost sad in an angry, unfair kind of way. At first I had no idea why this was. I started to recall everything that happened that day, and I noticed that I started feeling this way when Manson came over to me after talking to Tina, informing me that he and Tina were officially new fuck buddies for the later afternoon.

It was there, as I was sitting, bored and zoned out of period 6 science class, that I realised for certain I was in love with my best friend.

From then on, I had loved him knowledgeably, and it killed me with each passing day, second, and minute I felt it. What was worse was that Manson could never know. I lived in fear for the rest of my teenage years, frozen by the thought of me getting drunk and blurting my dearest secret, thus resulting in a drastic change of our friendship. I tried not to let it happen, and more so I tried to avoid alcohol and to steer clear of the drugs that were profusely offered to both Manson and I. But Manson took them, and so eventually he convinced me too as well, and thank God I never said a word I regretted around him.

The most romantic thing Manson and I did the whole time we were friends was kiss. He was 18, and I was 17. John had invited us over to his home, and so one Friday after school we all went back to John's. Manson had convinced some older guys to buy as a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, and thirty minutes later all three of us were standing atop the hill in John's front yard, sharing sweet swings of the bitter drink and staring appreciatively at the vacant farm land ahead of us. Naturally we felt comfortable and calm, but our cool, collective moods were soon spoiled as an explosion of gravel appeared before our eyes. I felt both the boys next to me tense their muscles in an attempt to hide their fear, and when I looked over at John his skin had turned a shade of ghostly white. The car that had created the scare cloud of dust stopped sharply and the door slowly swung open. A tall young man stepped out onto the driveway, he looked like a mobster cowboy. I instinctively reached for Manson's hand and he gripped mine, because the person standing before us made us all want to crumple to the ground in fear.

The mystery man reached into the back of his jeans and pulled out a gun. I tried my best not to scream or cry, so I moved closer to Manson and gripped his hand tighter. John looked over at me desperately, as though he was trying to tell me not to move. Slowly the man aimed the gun in our direction, pulling the trigger half a dozen or so times. Each time he did this his arm jerked closer to our heads. Then he stopped, pushed past us angrily and took our bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, downing the rest of the bottle and then throwing it onto the gravel. He walked inside.

"That's my brother!" John said proudly when his brother was out of ear shot. Manson and I tried not to coil in fear and say we were going home, in fear of being bashed by either John or his brother, or both of them. We walked inside and went into John's room, drinking some cans of alcohol he had stashed away. The kiss happened later that night.

________________________________________________________________

Marilyn Manson.

As I drove away from the girl I loved, feeling my heart being cruelly ripped in two, I remembered the most scary, most romantic moment I had shared with her as a teenager.

We were at John's house, and after having our alcohol taken, almost being shot, and drinking more John said something that changed our lives.

"Want to see something really cool?" He asked Chesney and I with a wickedly daring smile. I looked at Chesney and she looked at me, both our ears filled with fear. But we secretly both wanted to see what John knew about. So we both nodded.

"Okay." John said slowly. "But you have to fucking promise you won't tell a soul. If you do I will fucking kill you and so will my brother."

"I promise," I said.

"I promise." Chesney said.

John took us out to the barn that took up half of the back of his property. The whole way out there I held Chesney's warm hand. I had never done that before, but I figured it was simply because we were both petrified and needed to know that we were there for each other. Once we reached the barn I noticed blood was staining the hay that covered the ground, and I could smell a rancid smell of death. Spread across the hay itself was a mass of dead animal carcasses, including rabbits and snakes and lizards, each body decaying in a separate, cruel way by the array of maggots and beetles gnarling away at their flesh. I felt Chesney being sick in her mouth and swallowing it. I looked over at her carefully, trying not to draw attention to the tears that were collecting in her eyes in case John decided to joke around and throw one of the bodies at her. All I wanted to do was hug her, to make her rest her delicate head on my chest so I could shield her from the pure cruelness John proudly displayed to us. I wanted to kiss her and to never let her go. But I couldn't, so I just pretended to smile back at John as he said,

"This is where my brother holds his black masses." There was a big pentagram drawn in blood on the floor, and when John said these words he gestured to the drawing. It was like some kind of cult diagram, like a scary movie taken way too far. But John wasn't finished. "Want to see something even scarier?" He asked, for the first time he looked at Chesney. I did too.

Her skin was green and she stared at me with big, open eyes. Her pupils were expanding in a way that said "please take me home", but I ignored it and broke off my gaze into her eyes, as well as the link between our hands. I turned fully to John, trying to act tough. I didn't want to see something scarier. I wanted to go home with Chesney right then, but I knew if I didn't go with him he'd make up lies about me at school and beat me again, sending my popularity level rocketing straight back down to nothing. He do even worse things to Chesney, and she didn't have the experience I did, so my answer was to defend her, too.

"Okay, sure." I said eventually. I could feel the disappointment Chesney had in me snap around me like a thousand gun shots even though it was silent and masked. She didn't realise I said yes partly because of her.

_______________________________________________________________

Chesney Martin.

I remember the disappointment I had in Manson when he told John we'd go with him to wherever it was he wanted to take us. It was obviously much worse than the barn, but even that was way too much for me. I re gripped Manson's hand as John took us outside into the crisp night air and down toward the open entrance to a sewer, even though Manson had dropped the link back at the barn.

The sewage pipe went right underneath the cemetery, and as we walked through the pipe full of sludge and mud crusted in sickness, my only protest to turn back the silent tears I tried not to cry, I couldn't help but think of the dead bodies either side of us. There was no existence of another entry or exit along the way and that scared me. We couldn't get out if we needed to quickly. I stepped very carefully, making sure I didn't fall or get hurt. When we were almost at the end of the pipe I felt Manson's arm snake around my shoulder and I let my head fall back onto his arm in fear, my hand still gripping his tightly.

When we emerged at the other end of the pipe Manson and I stopped dead in our tracks. In front of us was a vegetation covered, typical haunted house that you only though existed in overly fake scary movies and cartoons like The Simpson's for Halloween specials. I was both frightened and mesmerized by the house standing lifelessly in front of me. Eventually we continued walking, John pointing out the scriptures that were written on the only bits of pavement that could still be seen under the growing grass. We had to pull vines and tree branches out of the way to get over to the house, and John led us over to a vine covered window which we climbed into.

Finally we were inside the place that was meant to be the scariest thing we'd ever seen. I didn't believe for a second that I would be more scared in my life than I was that night. The only things from keeping me running away from here were that I had no idea where I was or where to go, and secondly Manson was here and there was no way I'd leave him here alone with John.

On the floor were pentagrams, markings that were somewhat symbolic to something. There was blood everywhere. Suddenly a sound came crashing from upstiars. John himself started to run back toward the window.

"John! What the fuck man! Where are you going?" Manson yelled.

John continued bolting back toward the pipe, and Manson followed, pulling me with him. I started to cry more out of pure fear. John disappeared into the tunnel, from what I could see. He'd dropped the torch in the house. I started screaming, my legs stopped beneath me. I fell onto the ground in a scared daze. Manson stopped, and looked at me worriedly.

"Ches, it's okay..." Manson muttered, but I could tell he didn't think so. "We have to get out of here, okay? Just stand up and walk with me."

When I didn't move, he sat down next to me. I was shaking. I could feel he was too. His arms wrapped around me and I cried into his chest.

"I fucking want to go home!" I choked out through bitter tears. My arms wrapped around his skinny body, drawing him in feircly toward me. His grip tightened on me, and all of a sudden, looking into his eyes, I couldn't help it. My head moved closer to his, and so did his to mine. Holding each other out of fear, our lips locked. We must have been kissing for about ten minutes. When I pulled away, Manson looked down at the ground. Then back up at me. His fingers brushed away my tears. He helped me up, and carried me as best he could through the dark sewer. The rest I couldn't remember. I must have fallen asleep. I do remember waking up in my own bed though, the next morning.

He took me home.