Are You Loathsome Tonight? by Poppy Z. Brite Read Free Book Online Page A

was pierced with a silver ring that entered through the urethra and exited through the little wrinkle of skin at the base of the glans. This was linked with a large safety pin sunk deep into a thick fold of the perineum. The piercings had a dry, elastic look: they'd been there for a while, though the boy looked no older than nineteen or twenty.
    His eyes were still purple with fear, though, submissive as before. As he tugged the lush synthetic spill of hair off his head, Billy saw his graceful hand trembling. His real hair was cropped close to the skull, bleached an incongruous white-blond; the contrast made his skin seem a shade darker. His left ear was pierced with a number of progressively smaller silver hoops spiraling up the rim of cartilage and into the whorls of the ear, his right spiked with a single ruby through the lobe, vivid as a drop of gore.
    â€œAre you mad?” asked the boy. There was no trace of mockery in his voice, only the same soft monotone as before.
    Billy was utterly bewildered now. The ski mask had grown hot, prickly, the coarse wool damp at his lips and nostrils. He pulled it over his head, felt static electricity frizz through his hair, rubbed his chin and scowled. The criminal in him was stealing away, absconding with the jewels of pain and forced terror. The boy's slender legs were still drawn up and splayed, and Billy couldn't help noticing that his ass was still as round and sweet as a pair of ripe mangoes.
    â€œPunish me then,” said the boy.
    Billy blew out a long pent-up breath. The room, the building, the entire world seemed to have suddenly gone inverse. The gun dangled all but forgotten at his side, his hand still curled loosely around the grip but no good strength to it, no raw singing power.
    â€œWhat's your name?” he said at last, stupidly, almost shyly. He realized he had not thought to ask before.
    â€œJesus."
    Hispanic, then, maybe; not Asian. But the boy pronounced the name as they had done at the Baptist church Billy's grandmother had dragged him to, in the sermons he'd hated except when the preacher detailed the agony of the wounded man on the cross, as it had been intoned over Granddad's coffin in the parlor that day. Not Hay-SEUSS but JEE-zus.
    Billy pictured a sacred heart pierced with thorns, limned in scarlet flame, dripping lurid blood. No Baptist icon this, but Roman Catholic by way of a Georgia tattoo parlor. He imagined jamming the Luger's barrel up against it and blowing it into a million chunks of useless twitching muscle. He thought again of that figure on the cross, pale and thin and pierced: a true submissive, a submissive for all humanity. He remembered a line of graffiti he'd seen scrawled in the men's room at Port Authority once: Sure Jesus loves you, but will he swallow ?
    He realized he had not lost his hard-on.
    â€œOkay,” he said, a little cautious but still eager. It wasn't as if he'd ever been with anyone at all; he didn't know what he liked. Maybe it could still be good. Boy, girl, what did it matter? Inside the fragile envelope of skin, they were much the same. Jesus’ body was a mirror image of Billy's own; bleach the raven tuft of his pubic hair, yank the genital hardware, and from the neck down they would be twins.
    He slid the gun's barrel under the flaccid shaft and pulled up. Jesus moaned, shifted his bony hips on the mattress. Billy wanted it to hurt, and it looked as if it did, but the ring popped open just before flesh tore. Jesus’ penis sprang free, already beginning to harden.
    Take, eat; this is my body .
    Billy realized the torn lace panties were still dangling from his left hand. He crumpled them into a silky ball and dabbed at the blood on Jesus’ mouth. The fabric began to stain deep red. Jesus’ lips felt slick and tender against his fingers, and those Oriental eyes glittered with—what? Desire, fear, pain? Or some exotic blend of all three, some new emotion brewed just for Billy?
    He knelt at