Mercy

Frankie was the furthest thing from my mind as Billie Joe continued to lie on top of me, softly humming to himself a song I vaguely recognized. He did, however, manage to spontaneously burst into my train of thought almost immediately after the old man relayed to me a desire to be bathed. I recalled the supernatural phenomena surrounding that bathroom, and was silently thankful to the manipulative ghost for taking the time and effort to destroy my phobia of baths. Thanks to Frankie’s manifestation of my memories, I was able to confidently declare to Billie Joe that I’d be more than willing to indulge him.

The moment we entered the bathroom, all appreciative thought towards Frankie scurried into an ominous area of my subconscious not far from where the foreboding little voice if my conscience resided. That voice may have warned me of the dangers revolving around my actions with the old bastard, for Frankie was a powerful spook who had already made it abundantly clear that he did not want any physical contact being made between his ex-lover and me. He’d demonstrated his disdain for our relationship by making it practically impossible for me to touch Billie Joe, but that fiasco was lost to me as I found myself being pulled into the bathtub. At that point, any notion that didn’t include Billie ceased to exist as he made love to me in the lukewarm water. It felt backwards, his dominance over me, though he must have sensed a lingering weakness within that made it impossible for me to take charge. I feared I would become like the monsters from my past, Elliot and my mother, if I took total control of the reins, so the old man benevolently took them from me to hold until I learned to trust myself.

“Won’t be long ‘fore I’m too weak to do this,” Billie grunted through the foreplay, reiterating a truth I was already well aware of.

“Don’t say that,” I groaned in response, but regrettably, we both knew the day when he would be unable to move on his own without experiencing extreme discomfort was drawing nearer with each passing second. Not even my fixation on staving off his eventual demise would be able to restore his failing health. Unless there was some bizarre Pet Sematary bullshit going on in that graveyard that I never had reason to consider prior to falling in love with Billie Joe, he was going to die, and I could do nothing but hold his hand while a higher power maliciously took him from me.

Fuck, for a moment, I was desperate to know how Zombie had risen from the dead.

The old man shuddered on top of me, and with our limbs so impossibly entwined, his tremor reverberated through my body as if it had been my own. He was clearly troubled by discussions of his wrecked longevity and my frantic thoughts of a crucified squirrel, though he was quickly able to mask his sorrow – or was it unease? – with a smile as he whispered, “One o’ us has to.”

With a stroke to the cheek and a passionate kiss, we were once again lost as our mirrored lust cleared our minds of everything but each other.

I was instantly thrown into a daze, entranced by Billie’s every movement, and I failed to get a proper hold of myself until after we were both clothed and seated at his kitchen table with our eyes locked. One of his old t-shirts appeared to fit me just fine with only a tolerable amount of snugness, though his sweatpants were a different story entirely. They looked absolutely ridiculous on me with how they ended mid-calf instead of where they were supposed to end at the ankles, and I could clearly visualize a ghost of a smirk rippling across Billie’s lips. He made no efforts to hide his amusement, yet I wasn’t angry with him for shamelessly mocking me. I could have gone digging through the bags of items Jakob and I had obtained from the store to find a pair of pants that would actually fit me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so in fear of coming across something we’d purchased for Andrew. Instead, I was reduced to wearing the slacks of a pint-sized, cheeky skeleton.

“They might not look so goddamned funny if you rip ‘em up the sides a bit. Then they might actually look like shorts or somethin’,” he suggested, lowering his hand to rub my thigh in the area he meant for me to alter the sweats. My breath hitched in my chest at his relentless advances. A third round wouldn’t do either of us any justice until he’d properly recovered from the first two.

“G-good idea,” I stammered, resting my hand on top of his and lifting it back up onto the table to keep his touch from pushing me into the point of no return. His fingers interlaced with mine almost immediately despite my hasty rejection. “Shit, you’re clingy post-coitus.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, cheeks briefly flooded with a light shade of pink. “Why’d you let me do it?”

“Do what?” I asked, though I had an inkling of what he was trying to get at.

“Make love to you. You were too much a scared little prude to do it ‘fore. What changed?” he questioned timidly.

Initially, I wasn’t sure. It seemed like the right thing to do, and for once I actually felt comfortable in doing it, but I couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation as to why I was finally able to have sex with him. My brows were furrowed as I frantically scanned my mind for some sort of excuse when it hit me. His silence and secrecy were what kept me from allowing myself to get close to him before, but after hearing the detailed beginnings of his horrific life story, I felt more at ease with him. We were kindred spirits of sorts, both of us having been fucked over by the ones we loved, and at last I was certain he wasn’t going to ultimately end up on that list.

“I didn’t trust you before,” I stated bluntly.

Billie winced before demanding, “But now you do?”

“Yes,” I assured him, giving his hand a comforting squeeze. “Do you need any more pain meds? Or something to eat?”

After letting out a bemused chuckle, the old man barked, “Bitch, make me a sammich!”

I was about to stand, mouth open to allow a genuine laugh to burst forth, when I first caught sight of Frankie. He was hovering directly in front of the refrigerator, arms crossed over his chest, with an air of evident rage abruptly emanating throughout every square inch of the kitchen. Even Billie Joe went rigid in his seat next to me as he was fully subjected to the uncontainable emotions of a spirit he couldn’t see. He shot me a nervous glance, automatically assuming I was unaware of the entity in the room, but I failed to notice. My attention was on Frankie whether I wanted it to be or not. His anger had managed to consume me entirely.

Words were spoken, yet I understood none of them. They fused together as one unit, producing a noxious, low hum which increased in both pitch and volume as my unresponsive stupor persisted. The old bastard took hold of my shoulder and vigorously shook me, yet I was only vaguely aware of his touch. I sensed nothing but pain as Frankie held what had previously been my state of consciousness imprisoned in his murderous stare. I couldn’t even close my gaping mouth, so after an indistinct amount of time, drool began to dribble down my chin. I desperately tried to lift an arm to wipe the embarrassing spittle from my face, but all my efforts were futile. It seemed that all I could do voluntarily was cry, and Billie Joe made sure to wipe both the tears and the saliva from my face before pulling me to his chest and rocking me in his arms as if I was his sickly child. He was out of his mind with fear. It was written all over his face and his body, though if one were to observe my pathetic countenance they would be met with the jovial remains of a laugh frozen in time. The paralysis had set in before my amusement towards Billie’s crude choice in words had even been verbalized with a giggle.

Just as I thought my predicament couldn’t possibly get much worse, I found myself unable to breath. One of Frankie’s fluid hands had curled itself around my throat, burning my already charred skin in his plasmatic chokehold. I was certain he meant to kill me.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’? He ain’t yours, you stupid whore! He’s mine!” His voice, cold and inhuman, was the only thing I could distinguish through the panic-stricken hum that was my lover’s terrified cries.

“Mine!” he shrieked again, raising his free hand to strike me. My paralysis deemed any attempt at bracing myself ineffective, and his nearly transparent fist collided with my vulnerable nose, sending my head hurtling back into the old man’s chest. Blood began to steadily pour from each nostril while a pain unlike any I’d ever felt rippled through me. It was an impossible pain. Frankie was amorphous. He was not a solid being, yet somehow he was capable of strangling the life from me and striking me across the face. I wanted to cry out, but all that slipped past my lips was a helpless gurgle.

Frankie giggled at my pitiful excuse for a scream and removed his hand from around my throat. I gasped and spluttered, impossibly attempting to regain all of the oxygen I’d lost within a matter of seconds, while the malevolent spirit trace a finger along the zigzagging path of blood which oozed from my nostrils. Smirking, he lifted the bloodied fingertip to his lips and suckled until every last drop of the dark liquid had been ingested.

“You’ll always be second best, Sug,” Frankie sighed. “Peach ain’t got ‘nuff o’ his heart left to give to a ragin’ little harlot like you.”

Still, I could not move. My neck was on fire, my nose throbbed in time with my irregular pulse, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up in Billie Joe’s arms to sob until every ounce of terror and shame drained from my body through my tears. Not until Frankie’s ghost dissipated into the abnormally warm air of the kitchen would my body be allowed to regain any sense of control over itself.

My lover’s chest vibrated against my ear, and the hum of his voice sounded much more serene than before. It was soothing enough to nearly lull me to sleep, but the pain I was in undoubtedly would not allow for that to happen. I concentrated on that hum to keep from going completely insane until I became cognizant of the fact that I could actually understand what was being said.

“Frankie, leave Fairy alone. I ain’t worth your jealousy.”

He figured it out.

In a familiar form of self-deprecation, Billie Joe sent the ghost reeling. In an instant, Frankie disappeared from the room, and my frozen body melted into the old man’s arms. My embarrassment at having been bested by something that shouldn’t even exist, a spook, kept me from saying anything coherent in the moments after Frankie’s exit, but Billie understood. He cradled me and waited with patience insurmountable enough to have triggered a new bout of sobs to come tumbling from my throat.

“Shh, it ain’t your fault, Mike. It’s ok,” Billie cooed, but I couldn’t find solace in his confirmations because, in actuality, it was my own damn fault.

I realized that I would die by Frankie’s translucent hand if I ever slept with the old bastard again, and the realization swiftly dissolved my cries into hushed whimpers. I was willing to take that risk.

Billie Joe’s death wouldn’t be much farther behind mine, anyways.