Do I deserve respect?

Or will you say I have an agenda.

-

Faye

I watered my inequities each time I played into his hands and yet, each night I jump into him.

Cry and tumble into him.

The way he spoke was controlled by vanity and primitive thoughts.

The way he grinned at my skin hardening against him, conscious cowardice trickling down my chest.

"You should be thanking me"

"For what, " I seethed.

"For this"

He thought I was lucky.

Like I begged.

I pulled a shirt down my chest, over womanhood. As my mother drew a weak line up her lid with liner, my sister watched Bleach.

We tumbled into the car, drove to his house, I sat pondering why I even put that effort in. I didn't like most of them, they were equivalent gum at my shoelace.

"Hi how are you doing," she smiled, James' mother.

A slight tan of apartheid.

"Great," I smiled back leaning into her hug. I pulled back a smiled.

She went onto hugging my sister, and chatting to my mother.

Lala (my sister) fell into the crowd of slightly older youth group members. All but Matthew and James.

I saw James' sister, Amelia.

There were days I would've never thought her to be the same age as me then I remembered, it was all an act. She put it on in the church as did I. She sang the songs of Solomon, with a womanly attitude though her head despised the very man. The very God she was supposed to love.

I played One love by Nas, scrolling.

Beholding a black horse baring crimson blood at its' tongue, and resentment at its' lip.

Like Kunta a'nem.

3rd person

She walked to her mother, falling into her shell.

"Mami," she taps her shoulder.

"Can I go in the house"

Her mother stared at her sharp blades crossing her maroon.

"I don't know it's not my house, ask Matthew's mom"

"Okay"

She strides, bag had been slung at a wall or something. Headphones probably minutes from death.

"Hi sorry to intervene," her retail voice, one that's more digestible, like that lard packed McChicken " do you mind if I go in the house. I just want to check for James and Matthew.

They're here right?"

"Yeah, they went up to Matt's room earlier, you can go say hi if you want. I doubt they'll mind."

But who knows.

Dear you, whoever you are wherever you lay.

Do you wonder if she would've taken another step, had let her "innocence" go to bits. No, naïveté. One thing she prided herself of being immune to like the flu. Hay fever two. She was immune to being left in the dark.

Because one too many times they said they couldn't see her in it.

I wonder.

Wonder why breaths intermingled like their legs. Locker room sweat between twisted clothes, twisting between tied tongues and clinging hands. Hands touching what rested beyond the dark she lay in.

"Matthew"

Snickers and taunts.

Skin scratching, breath hitching. Begging. Never for forgiveness from God,doubted. But for more. More freedom, more skin.

More friction. More to the left.

"Fuck, Matthew. We need to mm-"

Hums. Buzzing. Yet they never heard the alarm nor her footsteps. Euphoric daydreams never being intervened. Not when her feet inched closer at least.

Back to her.

200pies, Conway. Soundcore headphones. Blasting, head bopping, skip hopping. Them stairs two by two.

At the door, nearly.

At his wits end, nearly.

Matthew, that horny fuck, pushed him further down that bed one hand at that skin connecting his thigh to his. The other hand in his hair. James pulling him further into his chest, lips, thighs, groin.

"Take it off"

Grabbing at hems, tense. Yet relaxed, a soft trail of raspberry kisses reaching inch by inch, down to his torso.

He was delirious.

"Matthew if you make me regret this I swear"

"I won't,"

" I promise."

He pulled him back. Letting waves hit soft, breaths at his lips. Letesha let his sanity drop like lace down cashmere skyscrapers, down red velvet and polyester.

His head tilted, as a mutual groan escaped.

He knew nothing and didn't need to.

"Matthew" he grew warm cheeked. Both of them. All of them.

"Matthew, I"

She opened the door to the scene of Eve biting sin in apple, tasting serpent skin. Writhing under a force. Writhing in pleasure. He liked him on top.

She froze still.

"I-uh-I"

She saw her childhood best friends growing Springs in Flame and June. It was a change of season. In pants to paralysis.

She saw James under Matthew groaning his name, Matthew shirtless, gripping and trapping every inch of skin he saw. Attempting to bite away clothes, he looked feral.

Like a wolf in heat.

Then, likes seasons change, winter turned to spring. Showers rested at eyes of the younger, he couldn't hold them back. He couldn't hold back fear twirling with the dead butterflies he hadn't digested. He felt ill.

The other boy scrambled.

Scrambled to pick up pieces of normality, scrambled to convince her and himself that all she saw was an image of two normal boys, church goers. He scrambled at his shirt, wiping every scent of raspberry kisses. He tore a letter up in front of her, proof.

Yet he knew she didn't believe.

Then, like clockwork, she came to a realisation of her predicament. So she closed the door. And took a breath.

Behind the door, two bodies that had been moving in sync - like yin and yang, with a

Wutang beat. Begging to map the stars with a tongue or fistful of hair. Looking dumbfounded as he scratched at skin he had never felt before.

Not yet men but they knew thirst.

They stepped and never reached a climax far and wide enough. They were hungry with not enough time, never enough.

They wished they'd picked a better time, in a parallel. That parallel they would've kissed until there was nothing left. Until every inch was red, crimson. So that their paintbrush broke, canvas now empty.

Sodom burnt like Gomorrah.

"Fuck"

Tears fell like boulders. Crushing his thick skull against a wall.

"Fuck, Fuck, Fuck"

Hymn like, as he begged for God's forgiveness . Brown hair clinging to sweaty forehead. Eyes became the same red those pulsating inches were under his shirt.

James looked to him, a little less physical distress. Still shaking though.

"We could- I uh," he sealed his sorrow and a cry " We could "

His heart beat the speed of a lighting bolt, Zeus thrown. Hand at his chest.

Matthew saw and clung to him. For both's sake. He pulled Letesha-Robinson-to-be into his shoulder, cradling his hand between his wrist. They both stood still.

Vegetation growing from the cracks in their masks.

"Matthew"

"James, I'm scared."

Behind the door, Faye regained her thoughts and composure. She knew better than to go in that room flabbergasted. She knew not to strike fear further into them, she knew what being seen was like.

She'd been naked like that before.

And slowly she opened the door.

"Hey"

They looked up cradling each other, eyes coated in tears.

"It's okay"

"I promise"

She knelt in front of the two, and softly touched their palms. Turned their hands around, and in an almost chivalrous manner pecking them like a booboo had appeared.

"I'm not gonna tell anyone, why would I."

She rolled her eyes mockingly and moved the boys apart so she could sit in the middle, before resting their heads on her shoulders.

"Your trust in me is so lack lustre, plus it would make me quite the hypocrite if I were homophobic. With all the shit I say and do."

They hummed at that, not giving her solace.

"Is this why you guys have been wondering with your heads in the clouds like this for months"

Her clothes were drenched in tears. Her earphones discarded at the corner, in the dark somewhere.

"You should be more careful, don't let your hot-dog brains lead you. Just because James can't get pregnant."

He slumped off her shoulder with that, eyebrows cross stitched.

"Why did you assume that it would be me getting pregnant"

"I said 'just because you can't get pregnant' goofy."

"You know what I meant"

With that he received a look, telling. Knowing the details of those fruit painted walls resting in the sidelines of his brain crevice. Those lusts he hid.

"You act like I didn't see what was going on, you were underneath him moaning. It's not like you stopped him touching your ass. If anything you were enjoying it a little too much I could tell by the-"

"God I get it. No more, please."

"Why you embarrassed now, Matthew, god yes," she imitated his moans with eyes rolled to the back of her head, " You know you not slick. Just be happy I intervened, because I'm pretty sure you haven't douched. We wouldn't want paint being splattered everywhere."

"Oh my god stop, shut up," he went red at the cheek, clenching eye lids shut. Hiding himself from her immorality.

On the other hand, a boy whose tears had magically dried began chuckling.

"Ummm doormat, I don't know why your laughing you act like I didn't hear what you said. I just thought my ears where deceiving me."

He scrunched his nose.

"I won't, I promise."

"I was going to throw up, I was appalled at the attempt at 365 days.'

He blushed slightly scrunching his face.

She began looking at them satisfied at having cheered them up, then pulled their heads to her lap.

"I promise I won't tell a soul, you guys matter more than fulfilling our pastors idiotic ideologies. I know better than to hate you for who are, when I've been hated the same way."

She curled them between her fingertips, breathing deeply. Smelling salt water droplets coming out faucets, moments ago.

"Promise me something"

They hummed.

"That you will remain honest to yourselves, whether in silence or crowd. Even if there is no one to help you."

They stayed silent.

"I want you to maintain this not for me but for when you lay on your deathbeds. And for when your honesty will finally be worth your weight in gold."

"Okay."

They hummed.

"Remind me to teach you guys sex-Ed that I probably will find off Reddit. Condoms are necessary regardless of who's not getting pregnant, James."

"Fuck off"

"Love you two, Letesha"