Madhouse Cell 01 by idolatrie Walk in, have a seat --my lap is free and my dick is hard, entry fee's a mouth of semen. Bend over, open your legs and relax. Go ahead, I don't mind if you grind your cock into my thigh, hump my leg before I can pull off your pants. Pretend you're here for something more than a long hard fuck against the wall. 'History is a nightmare,' you say. 'Too bad,' I reply, 'since you're never going to wake.' She calls up again, shrill scream of the phone. 'Do you know,' I hear her pulling on her cigarette, 'that alcohol is absorbed fastest through the walls of the intestine?' I ask her why the fuck I'd care. She laughs, grating and lipsticked. 'Easiest way to get someone drunk's to shove a bottle up their arse.' I slam the phone down on her for the fifth time this week. Must be a Tuesday. You're lying in my bedroom, I don't know why I keep letting you in. No, that's a lie. I do know, --you break up the day, kill the boredom, colour coordinate with my Laura Ashley linens I snagged off the neighbour's washing line. Apartment living isn't all it cracked up to be. I room with two rats, a cat with three legs and a block of cheese evolving in the fridge. They came with the place, unlike you --my lovely ornament. 'Beauty,' I tell you, 'reveals everything.' You look at me with closed-shutter eyes. 'because it expresses nothing,' you finish. There is nothing I know that you don't. We live our lives through fragments from the past. She calls again, alarm ringing before I've managed to sleep. 'Soda lye makes good detergent,' she says, 'if it doesn't dissolve your fingers first.' I tell her she's full of shit. She laughs. 'Hospitals have shit security. You can get anything from there these days.' I tell her to call her therapist instead. 'Only if you pay,' she singsongs back, kisses her speaker loudly and hangs up. I tell you father only ever wanted one son. That you were the night he mistook mother for one of the whores and fucked her so hard she hemorrhaged. I watch your face not-crumple at the edges, your hand not-tremble. I wonder when you got so good at holding it in. 'Tell me your truth,' I whisper with my tongue in your ear. But there is only silence. People never understand why they have to die. In those last moments they always break down, cry and beg, shit their pants. Is clean death too much to ask for? I offer all kinds, death by fang in a back alley, death by dagger in a uni dorm, death by acid, by strangulation, by arsenic, cyanide, by old fucking lace. Petite mort. My hand on your dick always makes me philosophical. She calls, almost on cue. 'A glowing splint will go pop in hydrogen and relight in oxygen.' I ask her when she thought I ever cared. 'Never. Always.' I ask her if that's an oxymoron. She tells me I'm the first syllable dropped. I hang up; there's not enough blood in my caffeine system to make me listen. Repeated clichés lose potency. I am the diluted cocktail you bled into last night. The first rule of relationships is not to have relationships. The second rule of relationships is there is only one rule. You broke the rule with your ring on her finger. You know this, so I know this. I am going to break you. She calls after breakfast. Breakfast's after dinner. 'When sodium and water contact, they catch fire. Use a lump of sodium big enough and it can explode.' I tell her to shut up. I tell her she's nothing but a voice in my head. I tell her, 'You're gone, Katherine. You're fucking dead.' 'Bond order,' she splutters, 'molecular orbital diagrams.' The line falls silent. My phone's been off the hook for three weeks before you turn up. 'You missed therapy,' you say. They want to rehabilitate us. They don't like us, too-young-too-pale, strange boys who keep strange hours and make too-much-noise. I told them to fuck off; you attend each session scheduled. You tell me if I go, I'll find myself. 'I am a deeply superficial person.' I tell you. We're always mouthing words that aren't our own. Coherence is for the weak. 'The world lives off your rotting flesh.' I say but you stopped listening two nights ago. That's alright, you're always catatonic when you're drunk. You're always so willing when you're drunk. 'Let me purify you,' I say. You haven't reacted since last night when I fucked you with a crucifix. Greased up Jesus with a lick of paraffin, twisted his feet into you, his arms embracing. You slept with the Messiah standing watch over you, rooted vertical and quivering. The last time we fought you called me a motherfucker. I asked you if you thought you were my son. I asked you if the blood of a brother wasn't enough. I asked you who you are, my brother-son-lover. I asked you if you exist without the possessive my I delineate you with. I want to steal your innocence. Had an enema before? No? That's fine, we're all about the new experience. Want to know what's in it? c-h-three c-oh-c-h-two c-h-three. Two butanone. Methyl ethyl ketone if you prefer. Paint remover, used in circuit boards. Stinks, yeah? Like nail-polish, but I diluted it in vodka. Wanna drink? Here, have some, won't hurt you after all. There's a good boy. My boy. My baby boy. Baby baby brother. So pretty, with your drunk-glazed eyes. I drink the vodka from where it collected in your mouth. Don't tell me it's not meant to be red. Metallic. I watch it dribbling down your chin, I lap at your skin, fist your cock. Gnaw at you, my rust-flavoured chew toy. There's an oxygen tank in the room, I liberated it from the hospital the day before you showed up. The valve jammed open an hour ago, it trickles air out. Soda lye burns, eats away at skin. I plug in the paint stripper with sticks of it. My bare hands redden, swell; I watch the skin writhe against the muscle against the bone. Then I watch you, your muscles relaxing enough to allow the white lump -- potential soap -- to disappear within. Phallus in wonderland. My cock is a pen in your hand, hard and spilling energy across the page. Vodka and paint-remover slicks your gut, soda lye holding it in. You punch me in the mouth but the other hand doesn't miss a beat --you jerk me off like you masturbate, harsh short strokes that threaten to tear my dick away. I sign my name against your chest and you lean against the bathroom wall, watching me through passive eyes. Blood runs through my teeth and I smile. You're my candle, you're going to burn for me all night. You're going to blow. Blow your guts against the walls. Paint our story in splattered organs. I hold the splint through the door into the bedroom, above the hissing oxygen tank; it gusts alight and crawls along the hardboard floor. The oven door is open, it's been running for a day. Bicarbonate dusts the kitchen tiles. We are surrounded by chains we revere. It is only now that your eyes clear, your shoulders straighten your lips curve. Your fingers are strong when they twist the hose from my grip, shove the end in yourself, turn the tap with steady hands. I feel the moment when it starts, the flesh jumping from its confines. My hands are in your chest as it opens, hands thrust in sheltering your heart from your splintering ribs. My arms around your head holding your mouth against my neck. Your blood, loaded with sodium hydroxide, scours away the skin. You drink me and I feel your heart staccato thrumming. You drink me and my blood is yours is mine is yours. You drink me and you burn.