Sick Minds

Gus drove May home in utter silence, the purr of his convertibles' V8 engine the only noise inside of the car.

She begun unbuckling her belt as they pulled up the long gravel drive. By the time the car stopped she had the door half opened.

Gus didn't say anything till she was at her front door, about to push the key into it's hole.

"Maybe you want to reconsider?" his words were met with May's signature blank stare. "Not even Fable is as enjoyable as I am."

"I don't know what you're talking about," and her words contained no hidden meaning. She wasn't trying to be coy, although most other girls in her position would.

"Sleep with me," so Gus returned the favour, evidently being blunt was the only way to get anywhere with May.

"Okay then," she said, pushing the key in and twisting. Gus hastily shut the door of his car and made his way up to her as speedily as possible.

"Where are you going?" his seventeen years of practice couldn't hide his confusion at that point.

"Inside, obviously. Are you coming in or not?" Her tone left no room for any other suggestions.

"Your mother?" Gus enquired as they entered the empty entrance hall that appeared all the more cavernous thanks to it's lack of contents. May simply shrugged.

The rest of the house was the same; the barren halls commanded a sense of foreboding, and apparitions seemed to lurk in every corner.

However, neither Gus nor May seemed to notice this along the journey to her room. May stopped once, outside a shut door on the other side of the house to her own room.

"May?" her mother's voice called out cautiously from the other side of the door at her daughters knock.

"Yes, mother," she sighed, barely audible. There was a silence, as Mrs Linden checked the time and was shocked beyond words. She had not expected her daughter home before twelve, at least.

It was five past ten.

"Was the dinner nice?" she asked finally.

"Yes. Sleep well mother," Gus detected the malice in the 'mother' May tacked onto the end of each sentence but Mrs Linden either didn't notice or didn't care. Gus rather suspected it was the latter.

And then they were in May's room.

Gus had been expecting it to be dark, dingy and littered with clothes.

For the first time he wasn't completely wrong.

The curtains were shut, and looked as though they stayed shut twenty four seven. And the room had the closeness that came from someone spending at least twenty four straight hours in it, smoking weed and keeping all doors and windows firmly closed.

There was an unmade bed and a wall mounted 46" plasma which was still on and connected to an X-Box. The screen was showing Fable's Start menu.

The only place his prediction erred was with the clothes. There was not a single garment anywhere in sight, and Gus was eager to change that.

But May was taking her time. She walked over to be-draped window and carefully pulled open the heavy curtains and then slid the windows open with equal care and slowness.

"I love night time," she said absently. "Come," she half turned, the look in her eyes drawing him to her.

"My dress, take it off," her voice was gentle, and Gus was following her every instruction without even realising it. She wrapped his arms around her bare waist, drawing him closer to her. "Now tell me, how do you want to do this? I can take you outside of your comfort zone or we can play it safe for tonight and we'll leave the whips alone."

"Do you have a whip?" Gus questioned, more on autopilot then anything else. A single nod from May. "Well by all means, break it out."

She stretched, and he noticed that he could see the muscles moving under her skin, bones shifting as she arced her back and they were shifting against him.

Gus hadn't ever been as interested in the girl he was about to fuck as he was in May at that precise moment. He moved his arms from around her and stepped aside, allowing her to wander to wherever she kept her torture implements. She didn't look at all self-conscious about being naked in front of someone she hadn't known a day. She'd pulled a box out from underneath her bed, and had the lid half off when suddenly she spoke.

"I'm not on this."

"What?" Gus asked, the confusion plainly showing on his face.

"I'm not on this," she replied simply. "Not right now anyway. I'm tired." If Gus hadn't have been so involved he would have noticed that May's usually blank eyes were not tired, that they were the most lively they'd been all day.

But he didn't see that. He acted on impulse, grasping her hands and pulling her closer to him.

"You will finish what you started," he said in a low threatening tone.

"Make me," she replied obstinately.

So he did.

~

Guy lay Callie down gently. Her clothes lay on the floor, mixed up with his but she was very definitely not thinking about that at that moment in time. She was focusing fully on Guy. Guido. That was his full name, and she liked it more but he never let her call him that in public.

She was just a distraction to him and she knew this. She didn't mind, he was always gentle with her and his room was clean. She was used to him as well, and Callie was very much a person of habit. They weren't strictly in a relationship, they were just... There.

Today he seemed more in need of distraction then usual and didn't offer Callie a drink like he normally did. She noted that but she didn't make any comment.

Callie had never much been into boys, she generally had more pressing things on her mind. When she was younger, around twelve or thirteen she'd gone out with Guy, a relationship which ended when she slept with Gus. Guy had been upset for a while, but he'd gotten over it easily enough and the two were quite close now. She always felt obliged to have sex with Guy whenever he asked because of that, although it was practically forgotten in his mind.

The sex lasted twenty three minutes, Callie thought to herself, noting the clock on the wall. Usually it only lasted sixteen. Guy didn't seem any less distressed, despite the extra seven minutes.

"Guy are you okay?" she asked, sitting up and deliberately avoiding looking at their clothes which lay in a messy pile on the floor. The boy next to her shook his head then caught himself and nodded instead.

"I'm fine, thanks," he replied although he quite evidently was not. He was perfectly still except for his hands which were fidgeting horribly, clasping and unclasping each other and twiddling their fingers. Callie tried to block it out but that was asking too much of her. She grabbed his hands and held them tightly in her own before straddling him and kissing his neck softly. Only when she as sure he'd calmed down did she let go of his restless hands. He pulled her down on top of him roughly and wrapped his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe. He was never so grateful for her as he was then.

~

Callie got home at three forty five. Guy hadn't let go of her till he fell asleep. Only then did his grip loosen enough for her to disentangle herself from his arms. She would have stayed but she'd always found it hard to sleep in other people's houses.

She made her way over to her wing of the house and into her pristine bedroom, took off her clothes and folded them before placing them into the wash basket (which would not, and Callie took this as a personal insult, be emptied till ten forty five the next day). Then she showered, and brushed and dried her hair, then changed into a green nightdress that matched the colour of her bedclothes. By the time she got into bed and covered her eyes with a green mask it was five.

~

Gus was usually an early riser, but the next day he didn't wake up till ten thirty. May was still asleep beside him.

He thought back to the night before, and it took him a while because his brain was still confused by sleep. When he did finally remember he shot up into a sitting position, causing May to wake beside him.

"Shit. Shit," he said again.

"Shut up," May complained, "I'm trying to sleep."

"May, I'm sorry," he begun, but she reached round him and put a hand over his mouth.

"I was just playing with you. Now please, for the love of God just shut up." She pulled him back forcefully so he was lying down and slid her arm out from underneath him.

"You were playing with me?" Gus asked as she turned over. May groaned.

"It's too early in the morning to be asking questions," she said. Gus wondered how she knew this. There was no sign of a clock and the drapes had been shut again.

He lay in silence, his brain turning over her words and trying to figure out what they possibly meant.

May's breathing evened out, and she seemed to have gone back to sleep when a knock sounded at the door.

"May, breakfast," her mothers voice filtered through. May didn't stir. "I'll leave it outside." There was another long period of silence, then slowly May got up and made her way slowly to the door, still nude.

She opened it and-

"Oh! For pity's sake woman, get a life," May spat.

"May," her mother interjected in a warning tone but May carried on speaking over her.

"I mean waiting outside of my door. What sort of sick satisfaction do you gain from that? Please don't answer. And yes, that is Gus's car on the drive. Before you ask, he's right here and of course I fucked him. And yes, I know we moved here so I could get a fresh start away from all the bad influences but to be honest mother I am a bad influence and I'm tired and I don't give a damn either way." There was the sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh as Mrs. Linden's hand met May's cheek and after that silence. It was more profound then the silence in the halls, it was angry.

It stretched on for a good five minutes and then Gus saw May crouch down and pick something off he floor, so giving May's mother a clear view of him. Then she stood up again and turned around, slamming the door shut with her foot.

Her face was it's usual blank.

"May-" Gus began but he fell silent as May shook her head at him and lay the tray she had been carrying down on the bedside table before crawling back into her bed and turning her back to him.

"May," he tried again.

"Shut up, I'm tired."

He looked at the tray.

It contained breakfast for two.

~

"When I finally got a chance to ask what she meant when she said she was 'just playing' with me she said that she'd been teasing me to make me more aggressive." Gus said to Ginny as the two sat drinking latte's outside of 'Coffee Cake'.

"What sort of person does that?" Ginny asked disgustedly. "Have you got a cigarette?"

"They're in your bag. And she had a full-scale argument with her mother about bloody breakfast and the fact that she slept with me." He sighed and let his head fall down to the table top. "I'm exhausted, give me a toke of that ciggie please." Ginny handed Gus the cigarette and watched as he inhaled deeply and then held the smoke for a few seconds before exhaling again and passing it back. "And it turned out her mother shut the curtains during the night- May had opened them when we got in- and we were both just lying there naked. She didn't say a single thing to me when I left."

They sat for a bit, thinking about Gus' night, sipping their latte's and taking pulls on the cigarette.

"God, it must've been awful," Ginny said finally. "Oh well, let her die. She'll be forgotten by next week," Ginny said.

"Yeah..." Gus agreed unsurely, hoping Ginny was right.