Written for dustandroses in the 2005 Oz Magi exchange.

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There’s a line that you cross, you know? Maybe you see it, maybe you don’t. Maybe you never knew about it at all - first you’re on one side then you’re on the other, you’re not too sure how it happened, not too sure it matters anyway.

But I know. Nothing matters - not now, not no more.

I’ve been fighting my whole fuckin’ life, it got me nowhere. It got me here, and this is the end of the line, man, no place left to go. Inside or outside, it don’t make a fuckin’ difference - it’s all just breathing now, just marking time.

They won’t let me out, they won’t let me die. Won’t let me live. So when he wanted to kiss me, I stood there and let him. Warm mouth closing over mine, so soft and so easy, like falling into a dream. Easy as that. There was no fight to it, no battle, it just was what it fuckin’ was.

Almost like . . . peace.

Close as I’m gonna get, anyway.

He don’t touch me, not much. Sometimes he’ll do something just to keep me going: touch my leg, my neck, warm hands sliding over my arms, fingernails scratching my scalp. Just making it easier. These things, he says they’re not for him - it’s like he just wants to help me. Help me get there. Wherever the fuck he thinks I want to be.

But where I want to be don’t mean shit, never has.

It ain’t that bad. Mostly, he just watches. Watches me slide my hand into my pants, grip my dick in my fingers, squeezing gently. Long, slow, measured strokes from the head to the base that tighten up my muscles, get my heart going good, make my mouth fall open to catch my next breath. I can forget about living, about dying. It’s like a dance, hips moving to a slow beat, drowning out everything else, just something to force my heart to keep beating, force my lungs to breathe.

Sometimes I can hear him watching, little gasps, but I don’t know what he sees, I don’t even give a fuck. I keep my eyes closed. Not to pretend he’s not there, just to pretend I’m not here.

And it’s as good as anything gets, just getting away, five minutes at a time. Dragged out of my fuckin’ head by the rhythm of my hand on my cock, wiping my mind clean of everything else, and if I think about anything it’s nothing I can make sense out of, nothing real. I don’t have fantasies anymore - that shit costs too much, too fucking painful in the end. This, this is just sensation, just enough to make the other shit fade away, a little.

Sometimes, though, I want something else. Not more – I learned not to ask for more in this place a long fucking time ago, like a dog that gets beat just for asking. You stop asking. But sometimes even this is too hard, too much trouble, too much effort. Just too fuckin’ much.

And one night I got angry, tired of putting on a show, tired of everything, so tired I could barely hold myself up. I turned and pressed him up against the wall, trapping him with my body, pushing myself against him. Making him do a little of the work for a change. But he didn’t fight me, he just stood there, letting me jerk myself off against him, his fingers drifting across my cheekbones, touching my lips, rubbing the scar on my face like he was trying to erase it from my skin. I could feel his dick pressing against me, but he didn’t do nothing else, just that touching, soft hands on my face. Saying shit, too low to hear. Soft shit, like I meant something to him.

It’s been so long since anyone gave a fuck.

The next night I went to my knees. He tried to stop me, to tell me he didn’t want it, but I’m stronger, and he didn’t want to fight. I pinned his hands to the bed, took his cock in my mouth and it wasn’t like payment, wasn’t like being anybody’s bitch. It was just keeping on, finding another way to make the pain stop, just for a little while.

I don’t know if I said anything, don’t care if he did. He talks a lot of shit, all the time, and maybe he’s telling the truth and maybe he’s just pretending. But that’s okay too. I pretend all the fuckin’ time.

And it don’t matter anymore. I’m not going anywhere now, not ever - I’m stuck in this place till they put my cold, sorry-ass carcass deep into the ground, no way around it. But man, I’m looking forward to that. Ain’t no place left to go but up.