Angel

by Todd Young

  “Sorry,” Angel said. “I was freezing.”

  “You’re hard.”

  “Yeah,” Angel said, exhaling with a whisper as Finn gripped his shaft. Finn tugged a little before ducking forward and kissing Angel on the lips.

  Instinctively, Angel pulled away, but after a moment of thought he leaned forward and returned the kiss. It was impossibly sweet. Finn, surprised, failed to respond for a moment. Then he pushed forward with his tongue and Angel’s head grew warm and confused until it felt as though it were full of soapy water.

  He broke the kiss and pulled away.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Angel said, though he didn’t sound very certain even to himself.

  “Come on, then,” Finn said, thrusting a hand between Angel’s thighs. He took hold of Angel’s sac and squeezed encouragingly.

  “Finn, maybe, just maybe,” Angel said, unable to repress a smile. “I mean, I’ve been thinking. Maybe …”

  “What?”

  Angel had considered telling Finn about his meeting with Miriam more than once, yet each time he opened his mouth to begin, he closed it again. He’d hoped, as the first days passed, to organize things so he could get back to the sunny courtyard again. Each day he’d stood by the bars, and whenever Hunter passed, had eyed him with sultry intent.

  Finally, a week or two after he’d first met Miriam, Hunter sought Angel again, but things didn’t turn out well. Hunter more or less raped him, being both violent and cruel. It was worse than the institute, and Angel hadn’t taken it well. When it was over, there’d been no question of Hunter showing him any favors.

  Since then, whenever Angel heard Hunter’s footsteps, he backed into the shadows. What Miriam had said about being a sorrow angel troubled him. Was that what was in store for him? If he remained here for years, as some of the others had, wouldn’t there be a danger of him becoming so lonely it happened to him? Then there was what Miriam had said about Finn, and how they probably could bind. How did she know Finn? It was that more than anything that had kept Angel quiet.

  “You know Miriam,” he began casually.

  “Quentin?”

  “Miriam.”

  “Miriam?”

  “Yeah.”

  Finn shook his head and, in response to Angel’s seriousness, drew his hand from his sac. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve never heard of her?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Hunter’s wife.”

  “Hunter’s wife?”

  Angel nodded.

  “He has a wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right.” Silence. “And you’ve met her?”

  Again, Angel nodded.

  “Angel, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “She lives in the sunny courtyard — at least, there’s a cell door there. She’s behind that.”

  “If you’re not dreaming. Are you delirious or something?”

  “Can you listen to me? I’m trying to tell you something.”

  Finn gazed at him for a moment and then nodded, his hair a pale helmet in the inky light. Angel told him everything he’d learned, not only what Hunter had said on the first occasion, but what Miriam had told him as well.

  When he’d finished, Finn was silent for a moment. Then he said, “So what makes you think she knows me?”

  “She said she knows you.”

  “She said she knows me?”

  “Well … not exactly. She … mentioned you.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said … you and I … that it probably would work.” He hesitated, swallowed, and then went on. “That we probably could bind.”

  79

  Angel was engulfed by a rush of sexual exhilaration. Once or twice in the past he’d done something that surprised him, something he’d now consider a sin, and with it, disturbingly, had come a rush of excitement and a sense of power. Now, as the words left his lips, he closed his eyes and swayed. He felt as though he were being swamped by a frothing sea, and in silence, he waited for Finn to touch him.

  When he opened his eyes, Finn hadn’t moved.

  “Are you sick?”

  Angel shook his head.

  “What else did she say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s it?”

  Angel nodded. “Hunter came along.”

  “Right.”

  Finn bowed his head and began to trace a pattern on the greasy floor. Minutes passed and Angel figured it wasn’t happening. He shouldn’t have said anything. Now he felt guilty. His thoughts turned to Cole just as Finn said,

  “You know, I think that’s it. I was telling you how there’s something with us I can touch — something helping us.”

  “A well of feeling?”

  Finn nodded, his eyes wide. “I think it’s her.” He frowned, looked inward, appeared to concentrate, and then began muttering to himself, though the words were tangled and indecipherable.

  Was he speaking with Miriam? It certainly looked like it. “Are you speaking to her?”

  Finn showed him a hand. “You think so …?” he said clearly before he finally stopped. He lifted his head and smiled at Angel saucily. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Definitely.”

  “Definitely what?”

  “Definitely the two of us. Now. Together. And if you say no, I’m going to fucking rape you.”

  “Finn!”

  “I’m joking.”

  “Still, considering what I’ve fucking well been through …” Angel pouted at the ground. Eventually, he lifted his head and their eyes met.

  “Come o-on,” Finn said, drawing the word out, a ribald smile twisting his mouth.

  Angel got up and walked away from Finn. He faced the corner and closed his eyes. It annoyed him in a passing way that his ass was naked, but he didn’t want to think right now. He laid his forehead against the cold stone and wallowed momentarily in grim despondence. He knew this was going to happen with Finn now and he couldn’t help feeling sorry for Cole. It was a betrayal, and from what he knew about infidelity it ruined relationships. He wondered momentarily if he could really go through with it, told himself he had no choice, and had started blaming Cole for his absence when he stopped himself.

  He groaned, and then shouted. “I think I’m going fucking crazy!” He turned on Finn and shouted again. “You’re driving me fucking crazy!”

  When the first of Angel’s tears spilled onto his cheeks, Finn got up and laid his hand on Angel’s shoulder. Angel began to cry in earnest. Finn pulled him into his arms.

  “I love you,” Angel said with a sudden sob. “I really fucking love you.” He kissed Finn’s face, his eyebrows, his eyelashes, his chin, his ears, his neck. He looped his hands into Finn’s hair and gripped tight. “So fucking much,” he said, his eyes firmly shut. He kissed Finn on the mouth, a kiss Finn returned. When they broke apart, Angel sank to his knees.

  “Cole!”

  “Shh,” Finn said.

  “No, really, can you tell him?” Angel said, lifting his eyes in desperation.

  “Tell him?”

  “Tell him what we’re doing. Why.”

  Finn hesitated. He stared at Angel for a moment and then nodded. His eyes blurred as he looked inward. His lips trembled. For moments, Angel thought he was going to speak, but when Finn finally met his eyes again he smiled in silence.

  “It’s fine. He understands.”

  “Really?” It was such a relief Angel almost guffawed the word.

  Finn nodded, his smile slowly transforming his face.

  Angel gripped Finn’s jawbone with both hands. “Fuck I love you,” he said, and kissed him on the mouth.

  Finn smiled and closed his eyes. He looped a hand over Angel’s back and ran it down his spine to his ass. He gripped a handful of muscular flesh. A few seconds later he had two fingers inside Angel, and moments after that he was on his back, on the cold flagstones, Angel forcing his way into him with more brutality than he’d thought himse
lf capable.

  80

  Finn’s head butted the wall with a rhythmic knocking. He was folded in the corner, bracing himself against the walls with his hands and feet, his body bent like a contortionist’s. Angel gritted his teeth, driving forward with a series of relentless thrusts, and finding an odd satisfaction in the sound of Finn’s skull smacking the stone. He didn’t think he’d ever been so angry in his life, though whether he was angry at himself or angry at Finn he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was doing something he’d been determined not to do, and with the knowledge came the certainty that he’d regret it the moment he came.

  He dropped his head and bit Finn’s neck, tasted blood unexpectedly, and with the taste of it came, spastically pumping into Finn.

  Finn whimpered and Angel exhaled, smiling through gritted teeth. He closed his eyes and an unexpected rush of tenderness overwhelmed him. He worried he’d hurt Finn and said,

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  Silence for a moment, and then, “No,” sarcastically.

  “I did.”

  “Of course you fucking well did. You’ve been smacking my head against a fucking stone wall.”

  Angel looped an arm around his waist. “Do you forgive me?”

  “I don’t have to forgive you. I want you to hurt me.”

  Angel closed his eyes and pretended he hadn’t heard. He lowered himself onto Finn’s chest and lay quietly, strangely unsettled, though he couldn’t say why. Finn really was beautiful, and intelligent too. You didn’t meet too many guys with that sort of strength, with the sort of willpower Finn had. And he was prepared to let Angel dominate him. Something told Angel that no matter what he asked, Finn would agree, and this both sickened and excited him.

  He nuzzled forward and bit Finn’s earlobe. All at once, an unnerving sense of disquiet fell over him. He felt, suddenly, as though he were alone, which was odd, considering he could taste Finn beneath his lips.

  “Finn,” he said, but Finn didn’t answer.

  An odd shiver uncoiled in his chest, a shudder full of anxiety that rose in pitch, unnerving Angel until he felt he was being swamped. He was suddenly conscious of his cock, of the thrill of sexual excitement coursing through its core. He was locked inside Finn, still hard, but softening. At least he thought so, but as he considered it, Angel could no longer be sure. The network of nerve endings below his waist tangled and fused somehow, or seemed to, and a moment later, Angel thought he could feel Finn’s cock in his ass.

  He was sure he could.

  He swam in darkness, momentarily disoriented, and then opened his mouth and gasped. He didn’t understand how Finn had entered him, but he was utterly overcome by a warm wave of pleasure. It was welling from inside, from Finn’s cock, and radiating outwards, into his spine and teeth. He laughed, understanding for the first time how a guy could find pleasure in bottoming. The laugh was high-pitched and odd, and he stopped, confused.

  He opened his eyes to find himself on his back. He was folded in the corner with his legs over his head. His ass was spread wide and jammed full of cock. It was burning and his head ached. He felt sick. He lifted his chin, baffled by the weight on his chest, and then froze as he recognized it. It wasn’t simply a warm, heavy body with dark hair and wings. It was his body. He was brushing his hair with his lips, except …

  He panicked with the jolt of an electric shock as it occurred to him he was in Finn’s body. His legs were painfully extended, his hamstrings pulled taut. The cold stone was biting into his toes. The cock jamming his ass wasn’t Finn’s but his own. It was painfully large, even if softening, and Angel felt horribly ashamed. If he had woken like this at any other time, and known how he’d been misused, he would have been angry and frustrated. But now, remembering how he’d jammed Finn into the corner like this, he couldn’t help taking a perverse pleasure in it. Something in Finn’s nature made it pleasurable, the pain and discomfort and humiliation answered a need, and as the total force of it hit Angel, he came, jism jetting out of Finn’s soft cock in short, rapid bursts. It so obviously wasn’t Angel’s faucet-like orgasm that again he laughed.

  Finn’s fluty chuckle echoed in the cell and Angel shivered, recognizing it as a sound he’d made himself.

  He swallowed and raised his eyes as the dark, heavy stranger on top of him moved. He lifted his head and stared down at Angel, his eyes gleaming with the inkiness of ebony, his dark, satin hair framing his face. Gazing at his face in awe, Angel inhaled a steady stream of air until he felt he might faint. He knew his face had altered, but could he really look like this?

  Was this man — this … beautiful angel — him?

  He was so … extraordinary.

  Ethereal.

  A peculiar smile broke out, Finn distorting the features of Angel’s face with something characteristically himself. He was laughing at Angel, mocking him gently, and finding amusement in the expression on his own face by the looks of it.

  “I’ve got your cock, and it’s in my ass,” Finn said.

  But no sooner had he said it than things again became confused. The tangled pair of bodies, joined awkwardly together, began to seem indistinguishable from one another. Angel had the impression he was surging into his own body again. He was aware of being over Finn, aware of looking down at him, but as he stared he grew confused as to whether he was looking or being looked at.

  He stilled, thinking he’d heard something, yet it wasn’t a sound. As though he were a vine, the first tendrils of Finn’s character began to loop into Angel. Angel recognized Finn’s sense of humor, smiled, but was surprised to find it becoming one with his own. He frowned as he pictured Finn in an absurd skateboard fail, a nut shot scenario that seemed to have come from nowhere. He’d never found that sort of slapstick funny before, though it now seemed as if he did.

  Next he was aware of a determined strength, of a steel-like resolve and an unflinching honesty that embarrassed him. With it came something tender. Deep beneath Finn’s resilience was someone extraordinarily sensitive, a damaged child. There was pain. Angel recognized Finn as a boy, and in Finn, himself. He pictured the two of them as children. He was taking Finn’s hand and leading him across a green field at dawn.

  Now Angel felt as though he were two people, or one strange new organism with four arms, legs and wings. It was as though he were an octopus or an unfortunate genetic experiment, muddled in the corner with too many appendages. He was folded on top of himself among a confusion of feathers. He had two heads, two pairs of eyes, and could see himself from both within and without, as himself and Finn, and as he watched, he began to be confused about who he was and where.

  It was so disorienting he felt physically ill.

  Then something gave way, as though a membrane had suddenly torn. Finn rushed inwards, a vast, dark consciousness. As though he were a storm cloud, he crashed into Angel and they began to coalesce. Angel struggled to process what was happening. He knew Finn, but he didn’t know this … character, not as he’d thought. Finn was so much more courageous, so much stronger than Angel would ever be. He was overcome with shame. What right could he possibly have to dominate Finn?

  Reflexively, he pulled away, both physically and mentally. Finn’s body jolted, and Angel was momentarily unsure whether he had done that or not. He shuddered, horrified, gripped Finn’s hips and tried to pull away, but it was no use. They seemed to be locked together. His fingernails cut into Finn’s pale skin and blood welled. He winced, watched Finn smile, and automatically rejected an image thrown to him by Finn, an image of Angel cutting into Finn’s nipples with his nails. The temptation of it disgusted him. It was insane. But somehow now this excited him — Finn’s impossible desires.

  He screamed and twisted his body and tried to get up. Finn, as though he were a limp doll, followed, his body unfolding. His head crashed against the flagstones. Angel glanced at his groin, wondering why he couldn’t pull away. He glimpsed a patch of smooth, young
skin, not merely his own, but Finn’s as well. Finn’s genitals had disappeared inside Angel. Their groins had fused, and he was stretching them apart, or trying to, staring in horror at the place where his honey colored skin commingled with Finn’s like the fading sky at sunset. He tugged back with a sudden jolt, lifted Finn off the ground and then lost his balance. Finn’s head cracked against the flagstones with a loud retort. His wings crushed hopelessly beneath him, and as Angel felt the pain of it, he vomited, watching in disbelief as a mouthful of watery liquid welled over Finn’s lips.

  It splashed Angel’s hands and he started to cry, though as he did, he knew that he was no longer himself. In despair, he acknowledged Finn alongside him, not as a separate person, but as someone who was tied to him. As they folded into each other, Angel understood for the first time in his life that humans were utterly and hopelessly alone. He had always been alone, though he hadn’t known it until now. The comfort of Finn’s presence filled him with a warmth and happiness he’d never expected. And he understood somehow that they formed new being, in the throes of becoming. He might have accepted it calmly, if at that moment their bodies hadn’t started to coalesce.

  There was a sudden shifting of limbs and a sinking together.

  Angel screamed all over again, terrified. He sank forward with the heft of gravity, his hips collapsing inside Finn’s. Warm liquid swamped his body, and it occurred to him it was Finn’s blood. He struggled to lift his shoulders, only to be dismayed as he realized his chest had slipped forward. Inside Finn. Their ribcages were now somehow entangled, and as Angel realized this, he twisted, strained and groaned, the friction of their grating bones ringing in his teeth.

  “Help!”

  “Fuck!” Finn said, his distress rising as he, too, started to struggle. “Oh, fuck!”

  They panicked and crashed apart in a violent explosion of light that flung them to opposite sides of the cell.

  In the dark aftermath, minutes passed in silence.