Welcome to DBZ Love Garden

(Gohan’s POV)

We’ve only once had a real conversation, no deep reflections, no explanations, just clarification of what we’re doing of what it all means. Illumination isn’t found in words just in actions and my returning every single time is clear enough.

“This won’t happen again,” I said, ignoring the denial echoing through my head because lying is the only way I can bear to leave.

Reclining in a bed that stunk of blood and semen, Trunks lit a cigarette and smirked. “Shouldn’t and won’t are two different things, Saiyaman.”

I scowled and shoved away. “I’m leaving now.”

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “You leave, you’re so good at that.”

Prick, he didn’t understand how hard this was. I raked a hand through Trunks’s hair and pulled his head back roughly, knocking his scalp against the hard wood.

“You smell like her,” he grunted accusingly through tightly clenched teeth.

I never mention Videl.

“Why do you have to smell like her?”

“Because I can’t leave her,” I said with a frown, releasing his hair. My finger caressed the tattered flesh of his neck; my jaw ached with the need to taste him again.

“You mean you won’t.” Nothing new, same old story and I hear him, of course, always have. Nothing will change though, she never matters when I’m here with him, not the way he does when I’m there with her….

“Why do you come here?”

Trunks shrugged, leaned over the side of the bed and picked up his jeans. “Because you need me.”

“Don’t you have a better reason?”

He didn’t respond.

I swung my feet over the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, eyes staring sightlessly into peeling wallpaper. “Absolution,” I whispered, wishing I believed it.

“What?” He asked, lighting a new cigarette and reaching for his t-shirt.

I ran a hand over my forehead, tried to explain. “In the Dark Ages, penitents could purchase atonement from their priests, no Acts of Contrition, just money. They could… buy… forgiveness.”

Socks, boots, dressing like the conversation wasn’t important. “Sounds like a great marketing strategy to me.”

It would. “But it wasn’t real.”

“Did they think it was real?” Trunks asked me, finding his belt and threading it through the loops of his pants. “Did they believe it?”

“I’m sure they did,” I sighed.

“Then, what’s the difference?”

I looked up at him in surprise. “You think God can be bought off?”

“You forget, Gohan, I’ve met our god.” Trunks scoffed. “If he’d been listening in the first place, then they wouldn’t have needed a priest and yes, I believe that everyone has their price.”

Everyone? I turned to face him. “What’s yours?”

Trunks paused, cigarettes and coat in his hand. “Me? I’m obviously cheap.”

“Trunks…”

“Look, you can call this atonement, you can call it an act of contrition…Believe whatever you want if it helps you sleep at night.” Sticking the cigarette back between his lips, Trunks inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out on a breath filled with heavy resignation. “To me it’s just fucking, I’ll be here waiting, every god damn time.”

We don’t talk anymore.

It starts in the palm of my hands, an itch, strange how it happens. Strange that it starts there, not in my chest, not even in my groin, just this constant itch in my palms. It’s always been this way. When the need starts, my hands start to burn, then they itch and the longer I ignore it, the worse it becomes, finally turning this angry red and the skin just peels away.

This hellish bond demanding attention, demanding me to concede, to quit pretending it doesn’t exist.

Instead, I stave off the urge as long as I can.

It begins to take up all of my attention, this need that sears from the inside, so intensely that it is scarring my palms. Trembling hands and every cell in my body screaming “Trunks.” The bond pulls at me, begging me to give into its tormenting call. Finally, it gets to be too much, the shaking and the craving, the peeling and the pain….and I give into it.

“This is the last time. This is the last time. This is the last time.”

Take the flight there slow and lazy, three hours and it’s too long and not long enough. What will happen to my hands if I refuse? Will the burns spread, tattooing my skin with my sin? Like a scarlet letter ‘A’? Or maybe it already has but I’m too deep in my denial to see it. Too deep in the thorns of self-reproach that my hands don’t sweat anymore.

Why do the street lights in this town always seem to sputter like dying stars? Thousands of rendezvous joints between here and there and he picks this hole in the wall. Places covered in hideous pastel, cheap paint, chipping off stucco walls, poorly tiled roofs, neon signs with various letters missing, by some unknown design, the exclamation points always work. Thousands and there is no use wondering how I know exactly where to go, it’s only important that I do. Land in the darkened lot, the wonder is gone with the slam of a door. Flip on the lamp, strip out of my clothes.

Disembodied voice from the shadows, no flash of blue eyes, the dimness hides the betrayal, the glint of what should be there. Flash of a bare back beneath tattered covers, as pale shoulders rise easily with the words,

“Late from saving the world again, Saiyaman?”

Gentle swoosh of clothing hitting the floor. “Yeah.”
He looks tired.

I don’t think about that. Won’t dwell on just how impossible this situation is, the toll it invokes on each of us but more especially him.

I flick on the ceiling fan, listening to the motor sputter and start, the whirl twisting the stale air inside the room. Half a dozen cigarettes, half smoked on the bedside table. Blue smoke sucked toward the blades of the fan, disincarnate ghosts spinning in the shadows.

I shed humanity at the door like snakeskin. Layers and layers of too many skins but the man in the bed only wants one. The real one, hidden under the everyday facade of ordinary because there’s nothing normal about me, nothing normal about him, nothing normal about this.

Sheets cool and wrinkled, blanket of red, rough wool, naked skin beneath them crafted from hail and steel. Smooth, warm flesh of cheek and thigh and chest and it quiets my angry palms and he starts, he always starts. I let him, pretend I’m doing this for him, pretend, pretend, pretend… and he lets me, bares my shame, takes the responsibility, and the blame, and begins.

Less guilt for me.

Skin on skin, touches too gentle, too rough, nails scraping, fingers clenching, and my hands grope bones barely covered by flesh. I won’t wonder about it because thinking causes feelings and I can’t allow myself to feel, can’t allow this to be more than it is. Instead tongues battle for dominance, kisses with eyes pressed shut and mouths wide open. Here, taste it, taste me from the inside.

Conscious thought was left on the other side of the door. Grab for a length of hair that is no longer there, a thick head of hair and growl at its lack. Grab a fistful of shorn lavender instead and pull…pull the head back and drink the sacrifice of his future.

Trunks’s blood tastes of wild horses, sweat and running, thrill and racing and even though I have never tasted that before, it comes to me again now. I can’t keep up, it’s too fast, unable to race, at least horses get put out of their misery.

So I take it, take as much as I can, swallow the feast but I know this…There is no fountain of misspent youth here. This is no chalice of forgetfulness. What I do now, I do with the complete knowledge of one who knows better.

It’s just blood, familiar blood, sweet and warm and thick as syrup but just blood. It has no inherent meaning, it changes nothing, it isn’t sacrament. Oh I wish it was, wish it was ritual and holy and full of ancient intent.

Wish this sacrifice would alter some grand design. Wish it would soothe my soul and Trunks’s heart but all that is soothed here is the hunger and the burn in my hands and even that lasts only a moon.

Still, if I breathe deep and swallow fast, I can almost catch it. That sharp taste of purity, that biting keen of something otherworldly, almost smell sun, showers, and fire on the man beneath me because Trunks is pure wildness untamed, a wildness I crave.

Drink here and live forever.

I will remember this, much later. I will forget the name of this motel and the scratch of rough cheap blankets on my back, and the sound of the headboard banging against the wall but some night, when I conjure the image of lavender hair and blue eyes, I will hold my breath, sink my teeth into my own tongue and be able to taste fire-tested steel cooled by rain and remember him.

Don’t think about it, regrets change nothing. I can’t fault this bond. It didn’t make me into something that wasn’t already present. Some little seeds of anger and rage and lust, most certainly lust, which have always been thus. Have always been mine and there’s guilt, boiling under the skin, festering and pouring filthiness into mine but I’m not sure if I’m feeling guilty because of him… or because of her…. Who am I really cheating on when I’m here with him? When I’m there with her? Dear god, stop this. Trunks take away this feeling, make me clean, make me real. I can’t feel anything but this deep abiding hatred and it’s wrong to be here, to be with him like this and dear lord, Trunks, help me, make this better, make this right.

Lying on my back now, arms tied above my head, leather belts digging into my flesh. Watching dispassionately as the pale hand produces a sliver of silver, in the darkness; hair, eyes, teeth, knife, all smiling.

Restraint gives us the illusion of control.

Short gasp and I’m cut, more pressure than actual pain, marking my skin like a bleeding tattoo. Until Trunks breathes on them, then razor sharp sensation overwhelms me. He’s not so careful with that knife, neat lines, then ragged lines slicing skin and skin and skin…creating a pattern of pain and a flash of blood and light. Pale rays like water purifying and maybe if I let him cut deep enough, I’ll find redemption. Maybe these wounds will heal my soul, my psyche. Doesn’t blood wash us clean of all sins?

Trunks is cutting and smiling and I wish I could bleed in colors, yellow joy and brown disgust, black rage and purple lust. All the colors swirling onto the dingy sheets, a palette of my existence, of his creation. Let it all pour out, bleed it all, give it all but scarlet is the only thing I see and it floods my vision, tinting everything that macabre shade.

What knowledge or passion disappears into the air with each cut? What small part of me is leaked out through the skin and the pain, never to be reclaimed? Memories of before, memories like old movies, black and white images that never capture reality to the clackity sound of the reel spinning them by. Silent words spill like particles of dust swirling in the faint light but I can’t read them, anymore than I can read the ones cut into my skin. Once they are gone I can’t grab hold anymore, not while that damn bond burns bloody the palms of my hands.

Squeeze my eyes shut and surf the pain. Skim along the waves of it, toes and curls of dark hair in the water. Wait for it to tell me something. But the pain is silent, a lavender-haired phantom, and it teaches me nothing I did not already know. That my body will respond to pain the same as pleasure, that my nails will clench around the leather straps and my heels will dig into the mattress. That my throat will close and my thighs will tighten. That I will give in to breathing, and panting, and moaning finally, calling my offering to a god who never hears. That my cock will swell and buck in the hot grip of his hand, while the other brands me with symbols that have no meaning at all. Slashes and upside-down crosses, letters and numbers and nonsense. Images without meaning. Until my arms, legs, chest, neck and belly are covered in blood, and sweat and spit.

Until every drop of what has been spilt here is gone. Never speak it aloud, this hidden design. Never even whisper of what it means…

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Until I kiss him, mouth open, and I taste it on those lips, lips that slip me words along with his tongue. A groan deep in my chest where Trunks’ fingers play, pulling open the wound above my heart and pressing finger tips inside. His passion tears at my body…at my heart. Puts it under my skin, staining me and Trunks is my confessor now.

Re-opens all the wounds. And he leans forward, tongue lapping at my tattered flesh, drinking me down. And it makes me grind my hips up into the sharp curve of bone and inhale… makes me hear the whispers in the silence. Kissing my throat, little movements of his lips like prayers, over and over, tasting the few inches he can reach. Trunks mouths the words against my throat, and I echo their shape in my mind.

He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. He won’t understand.

Slippery blood coated fingers around his cock, around mine, and arch again…but not yet…not yet…. I want to see what it looks like, all of it, the decadent pattern of cut and wound and blood, of hate and fear and lust. But even tilting my head down I can only see it from an angle, only from the top. And that’s not right, I need to see it as it was made, the view from the other side. I wonder what it looks like, this intricate pattern of blood that makes no sense, gives no penance. What does this leaking tattoo do to my neck, chest and arms that I cannot see, here, from the inside?

Trunks lays against me, presses skin to skin, rough friction against all the open cuts and wounds, and I cry out and struggle against the leather bonds, until suddenly he stops. I let the lavender head lay there, smoothing, constraining, perfectly still. And when Trunks gets up at last, it is there, on his skin as well; barely etched, the mark, in an opposing pattern on his own body. As a mirror would show him. It is there…..and it`s all the same. Reach your hand into the looking glass, come on, come here, see it from the inside.

Isn’t pain the deepest touch of all? It’s been so long since anyone has cared enough to hurt me.

Restraints are torn and the lean body is thrown onto a dresser, the wall above crumbling plaster dust around us. An unseen hand in the darkness. Oh, I wish that I could see it, but only the walls, the bed, what’s left of the dresser will bear silent witness to my tantrum, only Trunks and the darkness will know who did this.

Arms hooked under knees, lavender head in the shattered remains of the room, back against the wood and the wall. Blood and sweat nothing like lubricant. A rough, ragged push in and Trunks twists and arches, screaming his sacrifice. Struggles and I hold him down, can’t let him go, can’t stop. Find the rhythm, do it, do it harder, make it mean whatever I want. Make it mean whatever he needs. Bright eyes in darkness speak only in dares now. Create something from this mess. I. Dare. You.

I’m just as much to blame as he is, can’t resist the power and the danger. Because everyone is drawn to something stronger than themselves.

There is beauty in the lavender eyes rolling back, there is order in the long fingers loosing the blood-soaked blade, there is meaning in the taking, in the rutting, in the claiming, in the coming. It’s being mounted by the spirit, finally, it’s riding and being ridden; the bit chafes my tongue, but it’s good to bleed. And around the howling and the keening and the wails Trunks paid in cash to have ignored, listen. Hear it, like rice paper crumpling.

One of us is being punished. I’m not sure which one.

Later, I pull the slivers out of Trunks’s back, lick the wounds clean, feel him tremble. Trunks doesn’t bleed in multi-color. It’s all red. Red for anger. Red for lust. Red for rage. Red for hate. Red for death. Ever the same. Now is the time for red. Not sacred but certainly pure. He is simple and absolute and it is only right that I should suffer like a child to come unto him. Acceptance immersed in this abyss. And my palms are cool against his skin, the torrents of blood cooling down scorching flames.

They’re never gonna get those stains out of the sheets.

Sleep now. I don’t want to be awake when he leaves. Because I’m so close to begging him to stay. And maybe he would, but the last time was too much, too painful. This is only safe in the darkness, the light of day makes it too clear, gives it a meaning it shouldn’t have.

And I won’t speak. I can’t refuse him again.

Later still, I awaken on the cusp of evening, know by smell and by memory that I am alone. Reach under the empty pillow and pull out a switchblade, still coated with my insides. And it seems to me that there must be some way to make the thing work…if I can turn it just so, force it to refract the light and send me a glimmer, just the faintest hint of me in the redness.

But there is only blue and silver and dark. The broken headboard. The peeling wallpaper. A spidery web of shattered plaster spirally out from a hole the size of a man’s head. Dust that swirls like spirits above.

But here, there is no more. Just bloodied sheets, healing skin and a handful of people who will miss me, will wonder where I went. So I’ll make up something pretty for them, tie it up in a bright package and a spiffy bow. I’m the hero after all. And a sensu bean will make my chest smooth again, leaving only the scars on the inside.

Happens every time.

Just keep moving. Keep waiting for the next evening when my palms itch to distraction. Keep the blood-coated switchblade in my pocket until then. Because I’ll need it again.