You're all probably tired of hearing about how I woke up with Joe in my head a few weeks ago. I'd had this niggling in my head since a long-ago bluesky with a patient Te about HCL but I'd always thought, if it got written, it would be Billy. Surprised the hell out of me to hear Joe instead.
Thanks to Kat Allison for intellectual honesty and to Rowan for not laughing and to LaT for laughing and most of all to Kellie for slogging through it all even though it's really Not Her Thing, not to mention more than one dead-on suggestion; and to Mary the Fan for her incredible collage; and to Steph for catching such a glaring error I'm embarrassed (as well as for not only understanding the attraction certain punk stars hold for 'nice' women but encouraging it). I feel I should mention that this story uses only the film as canon, and maybe has been influenced a little by the official website too.
Soundtrack (it's a little heavy on the Headstones and Hard Core Logo. What did you expect?): "Ten Buck Fuck" (China White), Hard Knock High, Hard Core Logo. "Dripping Dime Sized Drops" and "Unsound," Teeth & Tissue, Headstones. "Settle," NFYN, Headstones. Blue fucking Tattoo, okay? bootleg from the HCL reunion tour. "Sonic Reducer," Adult Comics, Hard Core Logo. "Ultra-honesty," NFYN, Headstones. "Burning," Teeth & Tissue, Headstones. "Physics," Smile & Wave, Headstones. "Swinging," Teeth & Tissue, Headstones. "Son of a Bitch to the Core," from HCL's first album, covered by the Headstones on the HCL tribute album. And oh yeah: Something's Gonna Die Tonight, another bootleg from the HCL reunion tour.
Don't read this if you haven't seen Hard Core Logo. There are some spoilers, but that's not the reason. The reason is that you won't get this if you haven't seen the film.
And no, they sure as hell don't belong to me. If they did, I'd set them free to compete in the marketplace of ideas. That'd be a kick, huh?
For Melis, whose presence on this earth enriches my life immeasurably.
© June 2000 AuKestrel
I said nothing lasts forever and I meant it
A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye
And in the end, the whole world is blind
"Burning," Teeth & Tissue, Headstones
Addiction, yeah, that is the gamble. It depends on your addiction. Addictions. Coke, that’s a good one. It’s a fucking expensive one, though. Guess it’s not a real addiction if you’re not willing to sell your ass for it and I ain’t been there. Not yet. Alcohol, that’s a better one. Cheap, easy to get and so fucking easy to ride. All you do is pour it down your throat and let the poison into your veins, into your brain, and everything’s easy after that. And you don’t have to fucking sell your ass for it because you can always scrape together enough spare cash for a buzz.
“This next one is for the late great king of punk, Bucky Haight, who died last night in New York City.”
Billy’s back. Fucker. He’s been back. I mean, I knew he’d come back. When he said he’d be here for the benefit concert, he was here. When he said he’d do the tour, he was here. But last night he was finally fucking here. All together, all in his head, halfway into mine, Bucky’s guitar, Bucky’s song, and me and Billy... because that was always the scary thing about Billy, he could read me and even scarier was if he read me and didn’t give a fuck. That’s a hard place to get to, that Where’s Billy place, and I’m finally starting to get that I can only look for him if he wants to be found.
And he does.
“Do I have plans? I don’t know.”
He’s back. Back with me, playing off me like five years never happened. Behind me, my right hand man, where he was always supposed to be, where he belongs . . . I felt him. He felt me too, smug bastard. He knew what I did. Knew why, too. And what I love about Billy? He fucking liked it, man. Liked that it was for him. Liked that it was fucking Bucky over for him. He liked it all and he didn’t hide it. Never does, not from me. Can’t fucking hide from me, I’m inside him like the blood in his veins now.
Fuck that.
Blood’s not enough.
“What about me and you?”
You know what I am? I’m that worm, that fucking ice worm from that goddamned X-Files episode. I’m twisted inside his spine so tight he’ll have to cut himself to pull me out, cut deep and hard. And if he pulls me out, he’ll die. He’ll die, and I’ll live on the memory of the blood and the adrenaline and the smell and the taste and the sense of him, until I die too, in a cold jar somewhere, alone, people looking at me, their faces all distorted by the curved glass. Be so fucking cool, freaky to see that. Like a goldfish.
“I love you.”
It’s a... what the fuck’s the word? God, I can’t think... symbiosis. I gotta use that in a fucking song. It’s a cool word. I get that word, I get that concept. We need each other. Not to live. Living’s easy, easy part. We’ve both been doing that for years. Love, that’s harder. Love’s so many weird fucking things.
“I’m thirty five years old next week. If I play this club one more time I’m gonna fucking shoot myself.”
Billy’s hair is shorter than it’s ever been, almost stubble behind his ears now, no more fucking mop top for him. It’s a good look. It’s different. He can carry it off both ways. Me, I stick to the classics, mohawks and music. Music, there you go. Music and coke, that’s even better. Music, no coke, and Billy … what was the question, Alex?
“What are we going to do? You and me?”
Love. Blood. Music. Worms. Hey. I got a song here. What’s that? BÖC already did it? Fuck that. Not like me. Not like us. Not like Billy when he gets a few in him and lets loose, doesn’t matter if it’s a Strat or a dime store ripoff Fender, doesn’t matter if it’s MD 20/20 or Molson’s, all he needs is that push over the edge and he sails right off the fucking cliff and takes everyone along for the ride.
“New deal, though. Music, no coke, music, no coke.”
And sometimes he ends up at the bottom, broken and bloody. And sometimes it’s the rest of us and he walks away like that chick in that door in the sky and he never . . . he never fucking looks back. I never got that but that door in the sky, I always wondered what was on the other side. Sometimes, listening to Billy play, feeling Billy play, I can hear what might be on the other side, get the words to come out on paper, get the music to follow him back. It might not be real though.
“I want the music, man. Music.”
Real. Reality. Nice place to visit but we wouldn’t want to stay too long, would we, Bill?
“Bingo.”
No shit, Sherlock. It’s not real, it’s what he thinks is on the other side and if I could get there it wouldn’t be the same for me. If I could get there. He can go in and out of that door without even trying. Fucker. I hate that. ‘I can go in, I can go out. . .’
“... so you want you, me, you, me. Okay.”
He doesn’t even knock. Double fucker. One look at his face and I see all the way through him because he’s still here, no games right now. No. Blue Tattoo on top of the Strat on top of screwed Bucky works on so many levels for Mr. Billy Tallent, pushes so many buttons for him. For me too.
“Bucky’s a prick,” Billy says, leaning the Strat against the sagging armchair that takes up most of one corner of this room. He’s barefoot, like me, feet whiter than bone against the dark scruffy carpet.
“I’ll take Inane Observations for four hundred, Alex.”
Billy makes the buzzer noise, way loud.
“Didn’t stop you from fondling his… guitar, Billiam.”
“Fucking guitar’s too good to be sitting on a shelf, Joe, so screw that right now and screw you too.”
“Promises, promises.”
Billy looks startled for a whole half second and that kicks me up. I love to fuck with his head, fuck with his mind, fuck with his ass too, but the mind fucks are the best, coming and going.
He leans against the dresser, lights up. “He said he wished he found me before you did.”
Push ‘em, Bill. Push ‘em, Bucky. I’m only surprised you didn’t manage to say that in front of me. But you knew he’d tell me, didn’t you? Cunt. “So what’d you say?”
“Like you care.”
“True. Very true.”
“Unless I maybe fondled his… guitar.”
Whoops, there you go, Billiam, one step over the line. I’ll buy a lot of shit from you and about you, but let’s keep it up to our usual standards here… It’s my turn to make the buzzer noise. “Unworthy, Bill.”
He fucks me over with that smile, that relaxed, happy smile, the one he always woke up from wet dreams with. “True. Very true.” He gives good Dick, I’ll say that for him. “I’m too fucking tired to play on your turf tonight, Joe.”
See, this is what LA does to people. Used to be, Billy could say shit like that and I’d know he was full of it. Now… now he’s got that smile going, that insincerity bleeding into sincerity and the world flips around while I try to figure out what the hell kind of game he’s playing, it’s not the game he usually plays, it’s not square with the Billy who walked in here five minutes ago.
“You working on something?” he asks, nodding at the steno pad next to me on the bed. Oh, fuck me, Billy, you can do it just right. Pretend you’re interested. You never used to be such a good liar.
“No, I’m fucking wasted - on booze, man, no coke - “ I have to get that out before his eyes go suspicious on me, like I didn’t just fucking promise him nineteen hours ago, and I never broke a fucking promise to him, not ever, but that’s Billy fucking Hollywood, distrust right along with the greed, and it’s only an addiction, Bill, if you’re willing to sell your ass for it, which I’m fucking not, “and I got dribs, drabs in my head. Nothing. Words.”
“Fuck.” Fucker manages to sound sympathetic. “You wanna shoot it around? Want to go get some coffee?”
“No, I’m packing it in. Acid always does that to me. Never have the sense to write down what I hear when I’m tripping.”
“Jesus Christ. Hard Core Logo does Yellow Submarine. I don’t think so, Tim.”
That doesn’t merit a response. The day I cover the Beatles…
He stares at me a minute, that twisted grin on his face.
I look back at him, slitty eyed. Slutty. “You mean it?”
He knows. He always knows. “I said so, didn’t I? I don’t lie to you, do I, Joe?”
“When have I lied to you, man?”
He stares at me again for a long, a very long minute. “Bucky’s still walking, Joe.”
“I had to fucking call Ed fucking Festus to talk to you, Bill.”
“Bucky’s still walking, Joe.”
“Would you have come otherwise?”
“Fuck, no.”
“Then fuck it. I didn’t lie to you. I lied to Ed.”
He laughs. Smug bastard laughs. Yeah. Yeah, Bill, you got me where you want me, where you know you have me. Me too, Billy. Oh, fuck, yeah. Me, too.
“So you glad you came?”
“Fuck you. Staying in a fucking band house again. Fuck that.”
“You’d have come anyway. You’d have slept in the fucking van if you had to.”
“Double fuck you, Joe. G’night.”
“Double fuck or nothing?”
He started to pick up the Strat - yeah, tell me, him and it are gonna be fucking joined at the hip for fucking ever now - but he puts it back down again and turns half back to stare at me, his eyes strained and bloodshot. He’s frowning like mad. Pretending he doesn’t get it. Pretending. Always pretending because if you’re not Billy Tallent, then who the hell are you? Who the hell do you think you are, William Boisy?
“I mean it,” he says, and he’s serious as all hell. “I fucking meant it, Joe. You want double or nothing? You. Me. Music.”
“Music, no coke, music, no coke, I fucking got that, Anal Man - “
“I don’t give a shit about the coke, Joe, except that it messes with the music. I’m not running a fucking support group here. You want the music, that’s it, we stay with the music. I meant it. I’m not playing that fucking club again next year.”
“So… “
He mimics me. Makes me wanna split his lip open, lick up the blood, salty, bitter, alive. “So…”
“So what, Bill? Stop making sense.”
“Fuck that. So - new stuff - we do it. We do it right. We get a deal, you don’t fuck it up. You don’t fuck me over.”
“‘You and me’ sounded pretty unconditional back there, Billiam.”
“Fuck that. Music, no coke, how’s that for conditions? You want me, you gotta take the music.”
“I don’t fucking want you, I want the music.” Soon as the words are out of my mouth I hear the mistake, see him grin, fast, before it disappears again.
“If you want the music then we get a deal -”
“If you fucking think for one fucking second I’m going to kiss Ed’s ass - “
“Fuck that.” Billy sounds real all at once, tired and real, voice has that funny husky edge that sounds so good in Ten Buck Fuck, one reason I leave it until late in the second set or sometimes even the third. “Fuck Ed.”
“That’s a little too sick even for me.”
He grins sideways, one side of his mouth pulling up fast. “Fuck him,” he repeats. “LA… not your scene, Joe. We don’t need Ed.”
“So you’re dumping him?”
“No fucking shit, Joe,” he says, like I’m stupid. Like him firing Ed now is some kind of fucking foregone conclusion. Excuuuuuuuse me, Mr. Tallent, I got the impression you liked getting fucked over by Ed ‘best little whoreboy in Texas’ Festus because you just kept going back for more. “I don’t need him. He fucked me over anyway - “ He puts a hand up, fast. “Don’t fucking say it. Make me punch you out and I already told you, I’m too fucking tired tonight. Yeah, you knew he would, I knew he would, so what? I got contacts. We don’t fucking need him. We can put Mulligan to work. We need some dates. We need some new shit. We need Pipe and especially John to get their fucking acts together or -”
“Dump them too, Billy?”
“Did I say that?”
No, Bill. You never say it. You let me say it instead and you sit back and smile and take it all in, watch me take the flack. It’s our game, it’s fun games, I can take it if you can, I can play it if you will, I won’t say it if you won’t. Robert Smith, eat your fucking heart out. “You think they can get their acts together?”
“If they can fucking get serious about it. This is fine, this is good, this is fun, but I can fucking play this set in my sleep even after five years.”
“Not enough of a challenge for the great Billy Hollywood?”
“Joe.”
There it is. There’s the edge, the knife’s edge, cut me deep and hard, maybe I got the worm in my spine, maybe I’m the one who dies under the knife. “Bill.” I light another cigarette and stare at him. Here it comes. I suffer for your art? No, not art, Bill. I suffer for your wallet, is that it?
“You haven’t written a fucking thing in five years, Mohawk Boy. Fucking singer-songwriter.”
“Neither have you, Mr. Rock Star No More. Lilies of the field and don’t forget the horse shit.”
“I’m not in it for the… crap, Joe.”
“The hell you’re not.” And you’ve dragged me right into the horse shit with you, Bill. Well. Not fucking dragged. I walked into it with my eyes open, knee deep, warm and steaming. Wonder if I still have Stein’s phone number?
Fucker looks me in the eye. How’s he do that? Looks me right in the fucking eye and then he fucking… sighs. Picks up the Strat again and I get ready to do the one finger salute to Billy’s back, yeah, there’s a scene I can do, we’ve been down that short and dirty road before.
He sits down next to me on the bed.
I wait a few beats and then light another cigarette, for him. He nods at me, inhales deep and holds it a few seconds, I can feel a sympathetic burn start in my own lungs and his exhale is a relief. Then he starts to play. Starts to talk, sings a few words here and there.
He breaks off after forty seconds, twenty slow beats. “It’s not the Jenifur crap. I can’t get the words right.”
“Play me the whole thing.”
“I got more. Three or four, at least, dancing in my head lately.”
Okay, Bill, that’s not buddies. I don’t like eating my words and I sure as hell don’t like sitting here listening to you play like we’re sixteen and seventeen again. See? He’s doing it again. ‘I can go in…’ And I can’t.
“Play it all.”
“I’m tired.”
“Just play the fucking guitar, William.” My hand’s reaching for the steno pad without me even wanting it to. Scribble the chords, listen to his almost-whisper, scribble his words, mine too.
“Bridge is awkward, try it this way, D minor here, then… “ My fingers move next to his on the frets, we never did use two guitars for this part of it, always seemed to be a loop, his fingers, my head, my head, his fingers, and it’s back there now, he feels it, hears it, plays it, just like it’s in my head, in his head. “What’s with all the minors, Billy?”
He shrugs. Patented, that shrug, I swear to God. Eloquent. I’ve missed those fucking shoulders. “Sounded right. I can do happy.” He strums, grins, sings, “Happy happy joy joy… “
“You are one sick motherfucker.”
“You love it.”
Yeah, I do. But that would be telling, Bill, and that’s not one of our games, never has been. Part of the fun is guessing whose mind is more twisted, who’s going to blink at the last minute, one giant karmic game of chicken, me and Billy, Billy and me, always and forever. “Start again from the bridge.”
“Joe, we can do this tomorrow.”
“Bitch bitch bitch.”
He acknowledges that with that grin and a nod and stubs his cigarette out. I light another one, tuck it in his mouth while he plays it again, from the top instead of the bridge, but that’s Billy for you. Directions? What are those? That’s a mouth moving, words coming out in a foreign language, I go my way, you go yours and if we’re lucky sometimes you find me or the paths converge, if not, well, tough shit, not my problem, see you in the looking glass.
It’s lucky for him he’s so fucking serious about the music and so fucking good at what he does with it because a lot of people in the business just won’t put up with that shit. In our business, Hard Core Logo business, him and me, he could do that, go his own way, and I could let him because I knew he’d fucking be there when it counted, always was, always will be. Wonder how that punk attitude went over in LA, wonder how it went over in Jenifur, in the “serious” biz he claims to want?
He schmoozes great, don’t get me wrong. Everybody’s friend, doesn’t make waves. The way you know you’re under Billy’s skin is if he gets mad at you. If he doesn’t get mad, he just doesn’t fucking care and that’s worse than the mad, worse by a long shot. Yeah, he schmoozes with the best of them, I see it now more than before, even tried it on me, the fucker, for about three seconds, better at it than he used to be; but when it comes down to the music, he won’t compromise, won’t listen, won’t give a fucking inch, and don’t tell me he got away with that in LA studio sessions.
He stopped playing and he’s looking at me, a little puzzled, flicks ash off his cigarette and then drops the whole thing in the ashtray.
“From the bridge, I said.”
“I thought you were bored, maybe.”
“Maybe I was.”
“Maybe you don’t know shit from - “
I reach behind him to stub out my own cigarette. “Save it for the audience, Bill. You’re not playing for Jenifur here.”
He looks away for a second with that little shake of his head, baring his neck to me. He’s close. He’s so close I can almost think I have him. All I have to do is...
He tastes like he always did. Some things never change. Sweat, salt, and always, always that sheen of fear, invisible to every sense but taste, the reason you have to taste Billy to know who he is, what he is. And like it always did, the taste and the fear go to my head fast and sharp, a rush like no fucking other, and I slide my tongue from behind his ear all the way down his neck.
“Oh, God,” he whispers, and the almost-broken sound hits me in the gut, sparks me higher. His head goes back against my shoulder and then he twists and I feel warm wetness on my scalp, just above my ear, and then it moves down to my ear, his tongue licking all around my earrings.
I bet it looks freaky. Some giant two headed creature licking itself, maybe trying to devour itself. Jesus Christ, I love that image. Fucking cool, to see that. But best of all is how he tastes and feels and I want more. I slide my arms around him, pull him back and the guitar falls off his lap, off the bed, onto the floor with a noise that would normally make us both jump. It barely registers with me; I don’t think he even heard it.
He pushes and twists around until he’s facing me and the heaviness between my legs suddenly gets a whole lot heavier, pinched and painful: I wear my jeans tight, always have, chicks dig it. He stares at me for a long, long, long minute, his eyes big. And then they go opaque and I figure he’s getting ready to freak on me, I can’t see in there any more, can’t figure out what he’s thinking, and for the first time in our lives I feel like he’s… dangerous. I stare back, pinned, don’t want to move, don’t want to trigger something bad, something worse than this, something… better than this.
And then the bastard leans in and rocks against me. He’s hard too; wears his jeans a lot looser though so he’s not in as much pain right now as I am. Then he leans in all the way and I move to meet him, not sure who’s pulling the strings right now and not really fucking caring either.
Been so fucking long since I felt his tongue, smelled him right up against my nose, tasted him, full body experience, it’s the only way to go with Billy. Watching him’s fun but nothing in the world beats out the mouth, the body, the tongue, the whole nine fucking… yards.
I push now, shove him over, move on top of him and he spreads his legs for me, always did, always will, fucking cunt. And I’m right there between them, always have been, always will be, fucking slut, no better. Only excuse is the classic guy one: it feels so fucking good, mind fucks and ass fucks and no one does it better than Joe Dick and Mr. Billy Tallent, thanks for coming out tonight.
He pushes up to meet me, thrust for thrust, kind of like he knows that it hurts my trapped dick like hell and I still wouldn’t stop even if I was dying because it feels so good and he gets off on that, always has. Me, it’s just enough to feel him under me again, his dick lined up with mine even between two layers of denim, on the same fucking page again.
I pull at his shirt and he breaks out of the kiss with a long breath, an almost laugh, out of the shirt with another twist that almost makes me come then and there. He’s still so fucking skinny, always could count every rib, used to count them when I was too wired to sleep, too high, his ribs and the knobs of his spine in his long, lean back.
“Yours too,” he says, tugging at my sweater and the shirt under it. “I can’t fucking believe you still have this, Jesus Christ.”
I can’t believe it, either, Bill. Funny, the shit you keep around. “Shut up and pull.”
“You put on some weight there, Joe.”
“Skinny ass bastard.” I shut him up with my mouth again, fucking him with my tongue, getting sucked in good and hard and hungry, one of his hands on my scalp, calluses feel harsher there than they do on the hand on my back, between my shoulder blades.
I pull away from that hand on my head and move down to his chest, he fucking hates/loves to be sucked, eaten alive. Sure enough, his hand moves to my hair, tightens, pulls, pulls again, harder, like that ever stopped me.
“God, Joe, not - oh fuck…”
Not teeth, Bill? Feels too good, feels too bad, what? You’re not talking now, oh no, not pulling at my hair now. You’re just moaning and moving faster under me. Yeah, teeth. I know. I know your buttons, no one knows your buttons like me, no one does it like me, Billy, and I bite a little harder than I need to just to remind him.
Sometimes… sometimes if we were both coked up that right there would make him come, jerk and mess all over my gut and his, and that would be all the excuse I needed to roll him over and fuck him hard and fast, my dick and his ass covered in his come, nothing else, no other way.
Suddenly I’m fucking grateful for the tight jeans and the dull pain that won’t let me go over the edge, because that memory hits me between the eyes, between the legs, like a fucking bullet. Hot tight ass, never fucked anyone before or since like Billy, hot twisted mind, never been fucked over, before or since, like Billy did, like Billy does, like Billy will.
“Jesus,” he says and his voice is past husky now, it’s three cigarettes past hoarse, and the sound of it makes me jerk against him, can’t fucking help myself, humping his leg like he’s a fucking bitch in heat. He slides his hand down his chest and I grab his fingers in my mouth on their way past, suck two of them in, bite, let them out again. He runs his forefinger across my bottom lip and then across his nipple and I follow it with my tongue.
He laughs. He fucking laughs, arches into my mouth, and I’m flat out gone, sucking instead of biting now, just to hear him moan, feel him moan, feel the rumble in his chest under my lips, surround sound, amplified by his chest wall. Plug him in, turn him up, hit the reverb. If he was playing the Strat and I had my mouth here, could I feel the music? Feel what he feels? Hear what he hears?
He’s got his hand on my face now, thumb rubbing back and forth across my cheekbone almost mechanically, like he’s not aware of it at all. I turn my head to lick his wrist, close my teeth over the tendons, lick again, pretend I can taste blood there, pretend I can feel his pulse with my tongue. Wrong place to feel it; I turn back to him, his neck, that’s where to go. I can see the pulse pounding in his sweaty, taut throat; I can taste his pulse, taste him, almost taste the blood, feel his life pounding against me, against my tongue. I can feel my heart beating too, faster than his: we’re out of synch.
I lay my head down on his chest, warm, slick with sweat, matches the sweat on my scalp. I listen to his heart pound, feel my own go from out of step to counterpoint rhythm to syncopation and then there it is, beating together like pendulum clocks.
He moves, restless, always in a fucking hurry, Mr. Tallent; I can fuck him all night and never come, never want to come, but patience never was one of Billy’s virtues. He skims his hand down my back, tugs at me, says, “Shove over,” as he slides his hand between us. I’m on his left arm, he can’t get that one out from under me, but he never needed more than one hand to unfasten anyone’s jeans, mine, his, assorted groupies. Those long fingers aren’t just for show.
Not that I expected this particular show; I thought maybe we’d get our rocks off in our jeans and hope like hell the chick running the band house has a washer in working order, but I’m not going to look a gift lead guitarist in the mouth and I shift my ass a little so he has more room to manoeuvre. Listen to his heart speed up with his breathing, feel the rumble in his chest that precedes sound as he finally gets them unbuttoned, gets the zipper started, says, soft explosive whisper, “There.”
Yeah, there. The cessation of pain is almost a disappointment; maybe because it was Billy who did it, another thing I have to be grateful to him for, fucker, fucking fucker, because gratitude chokes you hard, closes you off.
“C’mon, Joe, off,” he says impatiently, pulling at a belt loop. “Fucking slowpoke.”
“That how you want it?”
“Fucking asshole.” But I made him laugh, I can feel him relax a little, and then both of us are pushing and tugging my jeans down and off. I roll off him to kick them off my ankles, off the bed, and he rolls with me, hand already on my dick, not even waiting for my jeans to hit the floor.
Forget about little groupie chicks with their soft little hands, too timid to grab and pump, too scared to hold and follow. Nobody gives a hand job like Billy Tallent, thrash guitarist. Soft palm, long calloused fingers, pain and pleasure, it’s all about contrasts for Billy, for me, and I fucking crave that hand on my dick, no point in denying it now. He knows it, I know it, we know it, and I know he’s going to rub the calloused thumb over the top of it right… fucking… now and it scrapes, stings, and it’s my turn to moan, shove my dick hard into his ungentle hand.
He’s looking at me, stupid ass grin on his face. Has me by the short hairs, yeah, no shit. When didn’t he ever? Loves it, too - you can see it in the way his tongue comes out to push against his lower lip, echoing the movement of mine. He licks the corners of his mouth and then, still looking at me, still jerking me, leans in to lick the corners of my mouth, two quick flicks and a hard twist of my dick at the same time.
“Watch,” he says then, and he starts jacking me for real. I watch, his face and his hand, my jaw clenched, another game: Where’s Joe’s Dick? First one who makes a sound loses. No, no penalty for losing except for life, with or without Billy, no hope of parole.
He’s watching too, but not my face, just my dick, just his hand, and the pulse in his throat is pounding, pounding, rhythm I can see, rhythm I can feel, oh Christ…
I grunt, angry, hard. Round two to Billy but he looks up at me, finally, I can’t get him when he’s not looking at me. I grab his hand, pull it up to my mouth, lick his palm, tasting me on his skin. I suck two fingers in, all the way, deep, daring him to look away.
Round three to me: he groans, a loud primal sound that just makes me suck harder, deeper, and he starts fucking my mouth with his fingers. Moves half onto me, snugs his thigh up against my balls and starts moving in tandem with his fingers, my mouth.
“Fuck,” he says, another explosive sound, and he rolls off me, pulling his hand away, breathing hard. Fucker almost came. Ha. Caught himself in time; he’s learned a little more control. Not that it ever used to matter; he was the original fuck an hour. “Jesus, Joe.”
I lean up on an elbow, pull him over, three inches might as well be three fucking miles and he ought to understand that. “Your problem, Bill, is you’re overdressed for this party.”
He bats my hand away from his fly. “No. Jesus. Don’t touch me yet. Go off like a fucking rocket, Jesus, Joe.” He’s still breathing hard; seems to be serious. Maybe, maybe not, maybe he gets off on me naked, him dressed, who the hell knows any more with him? Fucking head games. Fucking invented them, only way around ‘em is to come up with your own, like that snake that’s swallowing its tail. Fuck yeah. Ice worm swallowing its tail, even better. I wonder if that tattoo’d be obscure enough for Billy.
I lean in to lick the tattoo on his shoulder, moving my hand back down to his fly; this time he lets me. He loves the tongue on the tattoo. I wonder if he knows I’m trying to taste the ink, trying to get under his skin like that, permanent, where everyone can see me? My face looking out, blurred by Billy’s epidermis, probably only be able to make out the eyes and the nose and the mohawk. Might look like just a skull with a mohawk, that’s be even more fucking awesome to see. Or a skull with a baseball cap, backwards. Fuck yeah. The coolest. I snort a laugh into his arm and he laughs too, just because I did.
“Joe… “ He pulls on my hair, pulls me up. He looks at me again, those clear eyes that go right through to his soul, past it, maybe, if it’s there at all. One way mirrors, yeah. There we go. Windows into your own soul; Billy’s is marked “Private. Off Limits.” He lifts his head and I see his eyes close as he leans towards me, I close mine too before they get fuzzy and cross, and in the next second feel his mouth on mine again, soft this time, no tongue, just a fucking… chick kiss. God. Only from Billy. Only for Billy. I know it, slut, I already said so, didn’t I? So I let him - because he wants to, because he’s good at it - feel and smell and taste us, while I finish getting his pants undone, grinning into his kiss at the feel of his dick in my hand again after too fucking many years.
“Oh, yeah,” he says into my mouth, and I can feel his lips curving into a grin too.
“Yeah.”
Have to breathe, then, brush his lips with mine once more to make sure he’s still there, and then I move my head, open my eyes, look down, down…
Still the same. Jesus Christ, still the same, his dick, my fingers curled around it, still long, lean, hard, slicker than slick top. He always did leak all over the fucking place, never just one or two wet spots in a bed shared with Billy Tallent.
He’s watching me, not going to ask, no, knows better than that: too soon. My mouth, his dick, always was the quickest way to get the party started, lots of times the quickest way to game over too, and we’ve almost been there twice already tonight.
Now I have to admit, to myself, that there were a couple of uncool things I liked about sex. Not surprisingly, they revolved around Billy. The rest of the time I could do it, do it again maybe, roll over, sleep it off, never give it another thought after that. Nameless, faceless chicks, even the occasional guy.
But the uncool things… one was Billy’s dick. I wanted it. I liked it even better than eating pussy and best of all was when we could get them both in one place. Usually it was Billy’s dick after we ditched the chick while I could still taste her in my mouth, on him if he sweet talked his way into her cunt without a rubber for a few seconds.
Once in a while we found someone who’d take both of us and let us bareback all the way. Billy always got her first then; and he’d get hard again almost as soon as he came, jerking off next to us while he watched me eat her out, and God it was so fucking good. Uncool but good. He always made it look like an accident but he usually managed to come on her pussy, stray shots in my mouth, sent me over the edge more than once, and sometimes the chick too.
Once… God… once she was so zoned, ‘ludes, shit, I don’t know... once we risked it, I sucked them both, her, him, her, him, and he came fucking buckets that time, I think she passed out while we were getting off, lucky for us. Still fucking dream about it. Fucking uncool, makes me fucking hard as rocks, and I’ll never forget how he tastes as long as I live; it’s even better than his blood, maybe because his blood was always easier to get.
He said once he didn’t know if it was the mohawk or the mouth… the first time I ever went down on him, he lasted about thirteen seconds so whatever it was, either one or both, he couldn’t fight it.
Couldn’t fight me, not like that, not there. He’d fucking fuck my mouth, screw himself halfway down my throat, sometimes, and I took it all, fuck, I wanted it all. With Billy’s dick in my mouth I had him, I fucking had him, in so many ways. Couldn’t breathe when he came but I didn’t really need to because that right there was all I needed, his dick swelling in my mouth, in my throat if I timed it right, and then… then it was just me and Billy, connected by more than the band, more than the music, more than blood.
Blood’s never enough.
Still staring at his dick like a fucking moron but he still hasn’t said anything, he’s not even moving, he’s just hard as a rock and breathing fast, watching me watch him, we fueling something dangerous? Who the hell knows? No way I can stop, no way I would. He doesn’t want me to, either: I look back up at him, mouth three seconds from his dick, and I grin at him, fast, sideways and he inhales a huge breath and his dick jerks hard in my hand and then… sweetest music of all… he fucking asks for it. “Joe… “
Once is all it takes. This is one game we don’t play to the bitter end.
One tug on his waistband with my other hand and he’s helping, pushing with both hands, me pulling with the other, and while we’re wrestling the damn jeans off I lean in and lick. Don’t know who I’m teasing, but he fucking growls at me, lets go of his pants, pushes me/rolls over. Takes me by surprise; next thing I know I’m on my back and he’s fucking my mouth, pants still halfway down, saying my name over and over in a dark whisper.
Yeah, surprised me, but I like it, that’s the old Billy, the one who loved to screw my mouth, so I open wide, let him go, put one hand on his dick to keep him from choking me, one on his ass just because. Been five years but he fits right back into the groove, into my throat, like we did it yesterday, effortless rhythm.
“God damn,” he says, voice huskier than before, and I feel his balls pushing up against the heel of my hand. No. Oh, no, Billiam, not yet. Been here before too. I let go, move my hand on his ass down one leg and heave my body at the same time, get him over on his back, grab his dick with my other hand and squeeze hard.
“Ow, God damn it, you fuckhead!”
“Fuck yourself, we’re not even close to getting started. Get your fucking pants off.”
He glares at me, I like that too, fuck yeah, Billy’s the master of dirty stares, but he bends his knees, about all he can do right now, he’s breathing so hard, and I move to his feet, pull his pants the rest of the way off, toss them over my shoulder. That gets a grin, reluctant: he tried to fight it off, couldn’t. Never could, never could fight me, never seems to get that until we get here.
“Happy now, asshole?” he asks, rubbing his skinny belly with one hand.
“Fucking bitch.” I grab his hand before it gets to his dick, close my fingers around his wrist, think, not for the first time, that if he’d only go for it handcuffs would make this all so much easier. But that’s cheating, and I know it, he knows it. It’s got to be this way, can’t be any other, never could, never will. We got invisible chains, me and Billy, and the reality wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
“Joe,” he says impatiently, a warning note, twisting his wrist in my hand.
Yeah, he’s right, I don’t know who I’m fighting now, him or me. Don’t know if I can stop it again, don’t know if I want to, but while I’m thinking about it I can…
Salty slick again, nothing fucking tastes like Billy, smells like Billy. Suck the head for a few seconds, slide my mouth down his dick to his balls. Love the feel, contrast between soft and hard, and the musky smell and taste, concentrated there, bleeding through his skin, his dick hard and warm and pulsing against my cheek, leaking, leaving a slick path like a snail would, giant slug, and I choke on my own laugh. He snorts and then laughs too, probably because it tickled, maybe just because. His laugh twists inside me, worse than a knife, never knew how he could do that, how to touch the happiness in his soul, foreign country.
Got to get him back: let my teeth graze his balls, then suck them in, and he’s almost there again, moans, loud, and says my name: he’s a noisy fuck, always has been. Tries to pull his wrist out of my hand again while he uses his free hand to rub his dick against my cheek, slow torture, full sensory experience: hot, smooth dick, throbbing; warm tight balls, hair in my teeth, on my tongue mixed with the taste and smell of Billy… I open my eyes, lift my head a little, look up, up, up, and yeah… he’s looking down at me, serious again, eyes huge in his face or maybe it’s just a trick of the light. I see a flash of something, something that drops years off both of us, too many to count, all the way back to the beginning, when I looked halfway down the stupid fucking Group W bench and saw those goddamned eyes, looking almost like they look now.
My mom was bitching in my ear, had her tuned out, heard it all before and didn’t give a fuck even then: spray paint wasn’t fucking invented for lawn furniture. He was alone. His eyes were even bigger then, even clearer than they are now, and you could see right down inside him: cocky, hunted, belligerent, defiant, scared shitless. You could see all of it just like I can see it all now. Peel it back, Billy. Peel it all back, all the bullshit, all the lies, just us now, all over again, just like it was then.
I got up, walked over, sat down. My mom shut up for a minute and then followed me, started in again as soon as she sat down. He grinned a half grin when I rolled my eyes. I asked him what he was in for and he said, “Littering.” And I knew right then.
We heard heels clicking and looked up and there was his mom: skinny chick, blonde hair, light green suit and fucking pearls, ugliest goddamn scowl on her face, and when she opened her mouth he fucking flinched. I wanted to fucking punch her right then and there and I started to get up … and they called my name.
Listened to the judge and said the stuff I was supposed to say, actually fucking happy to get called, to get through it because it meant I’d get a chance to talk to him after and my mom was fucking ecstatic that all I’d said was yes and no and so she took off to talk to the bailiff, who was a friend of my dad’s. And sure enough, there he was, standing in the hall looking whipped, his mom down at the bank of pay phones at the end. I got his name. He mentioned his school, too: the one I fucking “vandalised.” Fucking over-privileged bastards but he wasn’t. And I knew where to find him.
It only took me two years to get him away from them: his fucking family had no clue what they’d hatched, who William Boisy really was. I thought I knew. I did know, for a long time; it took Ed Festus a lot longer to get Billy away from me and now, staring up at him, I think maybe he never left.
Hold his eyes with my own, complicated stares, while I lick my bottom lip, see comprehension in his face, anger, resignation, both, before his head tips back and I taste his ass.
Mind fucks, ass fucks… tongue fucks. Tongue fucks are mind fucks, me and him: he loves it, hates that he loves it; me, it’s just one more way to get Billy all the way in my head, his head, same place. Uncool as hell? I know. Fuck that. You don’t get much closer to Billy’s soul than when you have your tongue up his ass. Soft and tight, dirty and sweet, son of a bitch to the core; and even better than that is the fight he fights with himself and loses every fucking time, loses to me and my tongue. Fights it, always fights it, tense and clenched and then he gives up all at once and just fucking… melts under me, into me, open and panting and moving with me instead of against me, and, Jesus Christ, it’s almost better than coming. I can finally let his wrist go and use both my hands to get me in closer, deeper, where I need to be, where he needs me.
“Joe, you’re a fucking bastard,” he whispers, but I feel him dig his heels into the mattress so he can shove his ass down on my tongue, and I go with it, fuck yeah. Get him hard, deep, feel him loosen around me, feel his fingers on my face for a few seconds before they move back up to his dick. He’s cheating, always does, but I’m close enough to catch him, stop him, he’s just doing it because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands anyway.
One last thrust and then I lick back up his ass, around his balls, push his hand away, suck him again, slide a finger down, spit-slick, and he moans loud, pushes against it… and then jerks away.
“Fuck. No. Not that. Anything else is cool.”
Games, games, games. You’re screwing your ass on my tongue but you don’t want to fuck, no, tell me another one, Bill. “Bullshit, Billy, you always liked it.”
“Yeah, I did.” He’s breathing hard but he’s fucking gone again, slid right through my fingers, right off my tongue.
“Oh, so that’s my fault too, one more thing to blame Joe Dick for in your poor little complex life?”
“Joe, you gave me dusted pot and then screwed the hell out of me so that I’d forgive and forget you pissing away our major label deal. What the hell do you think I’m going to say? Sex makes it better? Well, fuck that. It didn’t. It doesn’t.”
Self righteous hypocrite. New look for you, Bill, is that the LA veneer? “Then what the hell are you doing here now getting your rocks off, Billy?”
He has the grace to grin at that and then he makes a move like he’s getting up. “Well, I can leave if it’s a problem for you, Joe -”
“Move your skinny ass one inch out of this fucking bed and I’ll break you down and drag you back so fast you won’t know which way is up.”
“Bet Pipe would help you if he could stay and watch.”
“You are a sick and twisted fucker. I don’t need Pipe’s help to deal with you, Billy Tallent.”
“You never know. Five years is a long time. Maybe I don’t play the games you think I do. Maybe I’m not the Billy you think I am.”
That goes without saying. Problem is, I never knew who I thought you were. Or, more to the point, who you thought you were. Probably never will, it fucking floors me that you can lay here with a raging hard on and me between your legs, ass still wet from my tongue, and talk about everything but that. Religion. Politics. History, anyone?
He watches me watch him. Silence is always a good thing to use on Billy. After about thirty seconds the nerves kick in, every time.
“Anything else, Joe. I’m cool.”
You are, are you, snot ass? “How about you fuck me, then, Anal Man?”
God, there it is. Better than an orgasm, watching him try to wrap his mind about that out-of-the-blue offer. Watch him squirm and wriggle to get out of it, butterfly on a pin, I love it. Get the fucking ether bottle, let’s put him out of his misery.
He’s quiet a longer time than I think he should be and then he says, “What?”
“Is it your ears or your mouth full of shit, Billy?”
“Neither. Both. You - you want me to fuck you?”
Jesus fucking Christ, it turns him on. Joe Dick, speechless, mark this one down, I didn’t see that one coming. Fuck him to hell and back and if this is a game it goes deeper, way deeper, than any one he’s played before.
Fuck me. Billy.
What you do to me.
People change.
What I do to you.
Too quiet, too long. What the hell. He’s fucked me over in every way known to man except the official one, so… let’s tie the knot, there, Bill.
I roll over onto my stomach.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, way too fucking serious. “You mean it?”
“I fucking said so, didn’t I? Asshole.”
“Fucking -”
“If all you want to do is bitch, I’m going out for a coffee.”
“Shut the fuck up, Joe. We need lube or something.” His hand’s on my ass and it takes me a second or two to figure out that it’s shaking a little. Weird fucker. Weird fucking freak.
“Just do it, William. I don’t give a fuck. Spit, whatever.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Mohawk Boy. Not just spit, not the first time.”
“Come on, Billy, we’ve done it that way more than once.”
“We were - I was used to it, Joe, we didn’t do it that way at first. You too wasted to remember?”
Holy shit, never. Never forget it. Any of it. Not one single fucking second. “What part of ‘I don’t give a fuck’ aren’t you getting, Bill?”
“Shut up, Joe.” He leans off the bottom of the bed, rummaging in his jeans. I shift onto my side, bite his ass and he kicks at me, says, muffled, “Freak.” He pulls himself back up, face flushed, hair erratic. “Just bought this. Chapped lips.”
“You go for the classics, huh?”
“Always did,” he says, unscrewing the top, way too matter-of-fact, squeezing a gob of stuff onto his fingers, smearing it onto his dick, wiping his fingers on my ass while I roll back onto my stomach. Then he’s between my legs, pushing them apart with a grunt; they feel almost too heavy to move. He leans over me again and I feel his hot dick slide up into the crack of my ass. Out of the corner of my eye I see him open his mouth -
“If you ask me one more fucking time, William -”
“Fuck you, then.”
“Little more action, little less talk, there, Bill.”
Closed my eyes; I feel the shake of his head though, I know the expression on his face. He thrusts a couple of times, slicking up my ass, and then he leans back, feel his fingers on my ass, spreading me, and, no more warning, shoves the head of his dick just inside.
Hurts a whole fucking lot and I hear him haul in a breath; maybe it hurt him too, which is what it ought to do, where we both ought to be. He pulls back out, pushes in again, still hurts, fucking tease, one hand on my ass holding on so hard I’ll have bruises, fingerprints tattooed into my soul.
“We’re fucked up.” He sounds breathless; wish I could see his face. I can feel a hot gust of breath on the back of my neck as he exhales, just like I felt him behind me on the side of the road on that fucking picnic table, just like I felt him behind me last night when I sang Bucky’s requiem.
“You think?”
That makes him laugh again, still breathless, and the hand on my ass relaxes. He pushes hard then, no stopping, slides in with a confidence I didn’t expect and suddenly the term “Billy fucking Hollywood” takes on a whole new meaning for me and I have to wonder if the smug bastard got it already. He probably did. One thing he’s not is stupid. The jealousy almost crowds out the pain for a minute and I bite down hard on my lip because right now I need to taste blood if I can’t taste Billy.
I feel his legs push mine further apart and then the weight of his body pushing me into the mattress for a few seconds as he gets it together, pulls out a little, and fucking slams back in, Jesus Christ, like he just lost control. Yeah, Bill, been there, fucking done that. Pain-pleasure explodes through me, white behind my eyes, and it feels so damn good it makes me dizzy and I taste blood from my lip, tastes like Billy… his teeth are in my shoulder, biting hard, and he grunts loud between his teeth and suddenly I’m jerking, spasming into the coarse blanket, fire in my ass coming out my dick and I don’t know where the one stopped and the other started and all I hear is a loud fucking moan, Billy’s name, mixed up with his moan, my name, all at the same time.
“Jesus Christ,” he’s saying when I get together enough to hear him, feel him, “Jesus, Joe.” He’s pulled himself up on his arms and he’s pumping hard, keeping it together longer than I thought he would. “You almost fucking pulled my dick off. God.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs and takes in a breath and then I feel his forehead between my shoulder blades, feel the pushing, the pulling speed up a little. “Got a… hair trigger, Joe? Guess some people... oh fuck... do change.”
I shove my ass up at him and the dull pain rips back into sharp focus for a second. “Are you gonna talk all night or screw, William?”
“I can… do both,” he says, little smug fucker, talent on so many levels, and I’m looking out through a basement window at that door in the fucking sky. Yeah. In, out, in, out, Billy, it’s always been your thing.
“Christ,” he says, cracking the word into two and then I feel his teeth again as he slams hard one more time, stiffens, and then his dick goes spastic inside me, every jerk and twitch rolling out a little wave of pain, not quite on the beat, my nerve endings playing catch up. He flops onto me, suddenly boneless, yeah, been there, fucking done that too, Bill, it’s a kick, isn’t it?
His breath is warm against my face and then I feel his lips on my ear, on my head, and I realise he’s fucking kissing me again, goddamn fucking cunt. Jesus Christ, Billy, you know - yeah, of course you do - there isn’t another person on this fucking earth I’d let do that to me, fucking chick stuff, but you do it, do you know how it fucks me up inside? Yeah. You probably do; it’s probably why you do it. The mind fuck, the ass fuck, the Billy special tongue fuck, warm and wet on my scalp again, there you go. No one does it like Billy. No one does it like us.
He pushes against my ass and then pulls out, easy, and my ass kind of grabs at him as he goes, pathetic motherfucker, and then he rolls off me, leaves me alone with the ache and the smell and the fresh-killed pain. Back in my body, back in his. Where’s Joe?
He’s laying in a bed in a band house with Billy’s (Where’s Billy?) come trickling out his ass, come and blood maybe mixed together, which would be so fucking perfect that I forget everything else for a second in that vision, white come, bubbles of red pain bursting through it. I roll over on my back so I can feel it run the other way, chance like no other, another thing to be grateful for but the ache in my ass is like having Billy there all the time, part of me now, so fucking good I squeeze my ass a little to sharpen the pain, feel it stab me, hot little sharp knife.
Billy’s nothing if not thorough, nope. And here I am, there I am, thoroughly screwed. Screwed but good, this time, and I saw it coming and I took it anyway. Fucking wanted it, no way to deny it. Fucked up doesn’t come close. But he’s the one who sighs, next to me.
I listen to his breathing even out. Listen to my own heart slow down. Wonder if I could stop it from beating just by thinking about it. He sighs again, makes a little noise in the back of his throat. He’s almost asleep.
“You remember that episode of the X-Files? The one in the Arctic with the worm?”
Billy grunts and turns over. “Aw, fuck, man. Yeah, I remember. Gross.”
“What would you do if you saw the worm under my skin? Would you cut it out? Let them cut it out?”
He grins, sleepy, feral. “Freak. I’d let you bite me and we’d kill the rest of them and fuck and fight across the Arctic Circle and back until the worms got tired of us.”
Yeah, there’s Bill, there he is, right there. Ever heard of the Kobayashi Alternative? He fucking perfected it, he could teach Kirk a thing or two about win/wins.
“So is it me or the music, Joe?” he asks, sleepier, but I can hear the smirk. I pull him, hard, against me. He stays; throws an arm across my chest and tangles a leg with mine.
“I think we’re in the bonus round, Billy.”
“Double Jeopardy. Cool.”
Yeah. Close enough.
oOo
He didn’t answer me the first time. “How was the interview, Billiam?”
Hand warm on my chest, little pat right over my fucking heart, which speeds up like it wants out, wants to jump out and pump in Billy’s hand, on the floor, wherever, and it’s a minute or two after he leaves before I register what Bruce fucking McD is saying.
Chicken, huh? Guess who fucking blinked?
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.
“I’ll take Fake Guitar Players for a thousand, Alex.”
… the heart and soul of Hard Core Logo…
“Is the question, ‘Where’s Billy?’”
Ehhhhhnnnnhhh!
Thank you very, very, very, very much…
And there it is. In the pain, in the sweat, in the fear, in the betrayal, there’s blood and guilt and redemption, one way or the other. This way, that way, salt and sweat and the iron tang of blood, mine or his, doesn’t matter, it’s all the same now, number one and number two, interchangeable.
oOo
Now the glass it is empty
It is no longer discreet
Last point of entry did me
Now I just can't compete
Hell, I wish that it would stop
You could drive a truck right through it
Fifty-two steps until I drop
And there's just no way for me to prove it
Could've been a day from Sunday
Could've been Tuesday last
Could've been everything I wanted
I'm pretty sure that it was everything I had
"Dripping Dime Sized Drops," Teeth & Tissue, Headstones
If anyone's interested: the lyrics from the song that kept me going on this. Yeah, yeah, songfic? So what? Fuck it. No one's making you read this.
I smiled 'cause I know I tried
Firing up the circuits
Can't see myself jumping double dutch
You know I smell the plastic burning
Last night was a pessimistic skydive
In a foolish narcotic shell
Beat the boredom that frames the lightning
Beat the path of the rituals
It's gonna become, it's gonna become, it's gonna become it's gonna become unsound
Bottom lip quivers rage is so apparent
Don't know whether to kill or cry
Don't know whether to rebuild or to burn it
You don't know how just to say goodbye
I'll tell you what
What's to tell
It's the world not a call I can screen out
Keep it down see if it digests
Your batteries are shot so are the instruments
It's gonna become . . .
You better run 'fore you become yourself
Well, it flies in and out of focus
Next best thing to a rage
I don't like the way that it coaxes me to explain
If you don't realise it's crazy
If you can't understand the source
Don't reach too fast for the answers 'cause it gets worse
Turn your face to the day that's striking
Bend the barrel when the chamber's full
I'd give you more but you know that there's nothing
Hardly get any sleep at all
I'll tell you what, what's to tell
It's the world, not a call I can screen out
Don't kill your partner when the dancing's started
Kill the path of the ritual
Gonna become . . .
You better run if you wanna save yourself
Unsound
Unsound