Warning: this chapter has explicit sex.

Ariel sat cross legged on the picnic table, sketchbook balanced carefully in his lap. He had a muffin tin of India ink —diluted to various amounts— sitting next to him.

“How's it going?”

He jumped, nearly dropping his paintbrush. “I don't appreciate that,” he said, setting it down and turning around to look at Fatima. “Where have you been?”

The other members of art club were scattered around the field. A few of them sat by the flooded volleyball pit, others near the goal post of the soccer field.

“Talking to Nehemiah.” Fatima climbed onto the table as well and stretched out crosswise, her long, jeans-clad legs hanging off the edge. “I invited him to hang out with us some time. I hope you don't mind.” She offered a lopsided grin at the sky.

Ariel blanched. “What? Why did you ask him to hang out with us? He's disturbed.”

Fatima shrugged and fished her own sketchbook out of her backpack, which she'd left just next to Ariel's. “I don't know. I think he has great potential.” She flipped it open to a page with a half-finished drawing of a tennis player inside a cage. She had only one arm. There was a bear just outside the cage. The bear was wearing cowboy boots and smoking a camel cigarette.

“Potential?” Ariel dabbed a splash of the darkest ink along his paper. “What do you mean? He can't even carry on a normal conversation.”

Fatima shrugged and began outlining a handgun just out of reached of her crouched tennis player. “So? We should help the less socially fortunate or something.” Her fingers scrambled to push the long strands of hair out of her face. They swayed in the mid-afternoon breeze, but she was too caught up in her drawing of graphite and dreams to bother tying them back.

“I don't like him though.” Ariel shook his head and slowly began to block in the borders of his page. “I don't know why you really did that. You always have some sort of nasty, alternate reasoning.”

She bit her mouth. “Nope.”

On the edges of her paper, she began to print Arabic letters. At first they were gibberish sentences —her entire picture was gibberish— but they soon began to take shape as their slender forms circled the bars of the tennis player's cage.

If at first you do not succeed, try and try again.

She wrote that a few times, until her hand began to grow tired of the symbols of her translation.

Help, I am trapped in a zoo, taking care of all the animals.

Fatima gave up on that one half way through.

Finally, she just settled on writing the word 'alone' over and over and over again until it didn't look like a real word in Arabic and it didn't sound like a real word in English. Her black calligraphy paint stuck to her drawing.

“Alone?” Ariel's eyes searched the page. “That makes the picture so much more morbid.”

She shrugged. “It doesn't really matter,” she said. “It's just to turn in. I think it's a pretty word in Arabic.”

“A word is a word,” Ariel replied helplessly, examining the girl as she sat next to him. “They have meaning. If you attach a word to something, that word means something.”

Fatima blinked at him through the curtain of hair that had stilled over her sharp features. “Stop it,” she told him. “It's just a word that looks pretty in a foreign language.” Her hands stopped as she finished writing the last loop and dot.

“Whatever you say.” Ariel peered down at his own artwork. “It's okay, you think?” He handed it to her, and she inspected it with her sharp, appraising eyes.

“It's pretty good,” she said.

There were people in the picture. All of their faces were just scribbles of black, messy, as if they'd done in the heat of a moment. All sorts of painful memories. She named them quickly in her head —father, lover, a stranger she couldn't place— and she handed it back, averting her eyes without speaking anything more.

“So if I were to fill all the empty spots up with the word 'forget,' you would consider it just a filler of white space?”

Fatima looked at him through her eyelashes and then looked back down at her drawing. The tennis star was still there. The bear with its camel cigarette was still there. The meaningless language and its meaningless words, those was still there too.

She shrugged and said nothing.

The next Friday found Nehemiah knocking on the living room window of Stuart's house. His jeans were torn up from climbing over fences and through bushes; his hair was slick with sweat and rain from his run through the streets from bus stop to bus stop.

Stuart opened the door and poked his head out. “My parents are gone,” he said. They were always gone, but Nehemiah was always cautious anyway. “You could have just knocked. Come around, I'll let you in the side door.”

Nehemiah nodded and waited for Stuart to opened the sliding glass panes.

“A week is too long,” Nehemiah grumbled, falling into Stuart's arms. He pressed their mouths together insistently, shoving his tongue between the other teenager's smooth, pliant lips. In return, he found himself pressed against the glass, squished against it until his lungs pleaded for air.

Stuart pulled back. “Definitely. My room?”

Dazedly, Nehemiah nodded. He let Stuart lead him up the flight of stairs with their banana laffy-taffy coloured carpet and squeaky steps and down the hall to the last bedroom on the right. He didn't mind being dragged around, at least not by Stuart.

Stuart put on heavy metal music that thundered through the walls and reverberated through the cells in Nehemiah's body. Nehemiah sat on the bed, watching and waiting, still. His hands shook as he struggled to undo the buttons of his jeans.

“I'll get that for you,” Stuart offered. He pushed Nehemiah onto his back, slipping a leg over his thin hips. “Just lie still.” Hands began to strip away Nehemiah's clothing, article by article, smooth and mechanical in the motions. “Are you eating?”

Absently, Nehemiah shrugged. “Here and there.”

Stuart glowered. “No, not 'here and there,' Miah. I don't like to fuck skeletons.” He leaned forward to kiss Nehemiah's slender neck, run his tongue and his teeth over the smooth, taut skin. “Though for a skeleton, you do taste delicious.” Stuart's hands slid into the front of Nehemiah's pinstripe boxers.

Unable to form entirely coherent words, Nehemiah pressed himself against the headboard. His eyes flicked back and forth nervously.

“Ugh. Calm the fuck down.” Stuart kissed collarbone right and collarbone left and the hollow space between them. “You act like we've never fucked before.”

But they had. They had three times a week every week through freshman year. That and the odd weekend in sophomore year. Now they were going to school across town from each other, and it was just the lonely Friday afternoons when Nehemiah could sneak out.

He shrugged. “Sorry.” His hands threaded through Stuart's hair as the blond boy's mouth moved down his chest, his belly, to his hips. “I have a lot of my mind.”

Stuart peered up at him through a curtain of pale hair. “You not want to do this?”

“It's fine,” said Nehemiah. “I'm making a concerted effort to forget about everything.”

Stuart shrugged, his tongue darting out to trace the crucifix tattooed on Nehemiah's hip. “I can help with that,” he told the ink in the skin. “I am the master of forgetting things.” His hands slid up Nehemiah's thighs, grinding down to make him squirm.

Nehemiah nodded. Stuart was the master of making him forget things.

This was sex.

This was just sex.

Stuart's mouth found the length of hot flesh and his tongue ran up it slowly. Nehemiah shivered, squirmed into the rustling bedsheets. “That's good,” he hissed, to remind himself that it was good, even if it was just sex.

He bit his lip until he was sure it was beginning to bleed.

Stuart had lube in a tiny blue bottle and he coated his fingers in it before sliding them, one by one, into Nehemiah's shaking body. They twisted, crooked, slid in and out of him until his stomach twisted in ecstatic numbness.

Acid green condom. “Because you're a whore,” Stuart said.

And he was right.

Nehemiah's back arched when he felt the other boy slide into him. Their hips met, warm skin against warm skin, hands that clawed and bit into bony hips. His breath came in excited, absent pants.

“You like that?”

Unable to speak, Nehemiah just nodded. His hands slid down his chest to run over his aching erection. Without speaking, Stuart swatted them away, pinning them to one side, leaving Nehemiah gasping and squirming and desperate.

His eyes fell shut. “Stuart,” he pleaded, as if saying that name over and over would get him what he wanted.

“Be quiet.” Stuart yanked his hips forward roughly, driving him deeper into Nehemiah. His mouth set in a firm line as he thrust into the other boy, pulling their body's closer until there was scarcely any space between them, and Nehemiah had begun to lose where he ended and Stuart began.

A slender finger touched the tip of Nehemiah's cock, spreading the bead of precum down its length. Nehemiah squirmed against Stuart's hands, desperate and gasping. “Don't do that,” he whined.

Stuart did it again anyway. He leaned forward, curling Nehemiah up until their mouths were close enough to touch. He angled his head and bit into the thin skin that covered Nehemiah's pulse, humming with satisfaction at the gasp that followed.

Nehemiah heaved a sigh and peered through his eyelashes at the fuzzy outline of Stuart's face. Just briefly if this was what it was like to have sex with someone and not have it just be fucking. He tilted his head back, sighing heavily. That mouth made everything seem okay.

Stuart ran his hand up Nehemiah's erection, matching the speed of his rapid thrusting. Nehemiah's mouth fell open and his toes curled. His fingernails dug into the mattress until he felt them snap.

No. This was just sex.

His eyes squeezed shut until all he could see was blackness and all he could feel was that mouth on his skin. Sucking. Biting.

Fingers that cut through white, inked skin.

Stuart's mouth pressed gently up against his, tongue pushing past pliant lips. His hands threaded gently through Nehemiah's damp hair, pushing it back out of his face. “Miah,” murmured Stuart.

The nickname made his head spin. Nehemiah's stomach twisted and ripples of ecstasy rolled through his body, his arms, his fingers. His skin tingled, his lungs sang.

Stuart climbed off of him and rolled onto his back.

“You're a pretty good fuck,” he said.

Nehemiah rolled over and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. He felt sick, falling, disoriented.

“You too,” he whispered, but there was no reply.

“I don't want to go to a stupid ice cream social,” Keegan complained. His arms were crossed, his brow furrowed with frustration. “I hate this stupid stuff. It's just so people can be part of a 'community' or something but no one even cares about that.”

“Free ice cream,” Bashe pointed out. “Besides, Ariel's pretty legitimately fun, right?”

Keegan scowled and stared down at the floor. “I guess,” he mumbled sourly. “Fine. Come on, let's leave so we can come back as soon as possible.” He stomped over to the door, pausing only once to make sure that Ariel was still following him.

He was, of course.

Ariel slid into the front seat of the car. “So are you going to see any of your friends there?” He tried to imagine Keegan standing there alone, dejected, and the thought made him shiver. “I mean, do you think you will run into anyone you know?”

Keegan snorted. “I know everybody. I just don't like very many of them.” He clicked his seatbelt and sat glaring out the wind shield.

“You like that one kid...” Ariel started the car and backed carefully out of the driveway, into the nearly empty suburban street. “What's his name? Joe?”

“Jon,” Keegan corrected, without even batting an eyelash. “He's the one with the brother who was dating a boy and their dad freaked out so they moved out here. Remember, I was telling you? That's why Jon started in the middle of the year.”

Ariel didn't remember. “Oh, yeah.”

Ariel halted the car at the red stop sign at the end of the street. An orange BMW swerved around the corner, nearly knocking over a little girl in purple striped stockings.

“I can't believe you actually go to school here,” he mumbled, eyeing Keegan in the passenger's seat. “People seem unnecessarily snotty.” He pulled into one of the tighter parking spots and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Don't ding anyone's paint, because if we have to re-park to avoid trouble, you'll end up being late.”

“It doesn't matter if I'm late,” Keegan grumbled, but he opened the door carefully none the less. “Let's just go.” His copper hair swayed back and forth in the late afternoon breeze. He wrapped his navy sweatshirt tighter around his shoulders and began to cut across the pitch to get to the masses of other middle schoolers sitting in the middle of it.

Awkwardly, Ariel followed him.

They offered small cups of cheap ice cream— sweet, but no distinct flavour. Ariel chose one that he assumed was supposed to be chocolate chip brownie. Experimentally, he chewed. It tasted a little like chocolate, but mostly like sweetened milk.

Unsurprised, he sat down on the grass to finish it off.

People moved as if in slow motion. The smaller children —sixth graders, by the looks of it, and their younger siblings— engaged each other in water fights in the middle of the sprinklers, armed with cups of cold, clear drinking fountain water.

The parents talked in hushed tones about Little Johnny needs to learn calculus early and Sue's Mandarin is just subpar. He shivered, trying to tune out their loud, cracking voices.

“Ariel!”

Ariel was torn from his reverie. “Hey Keegan.” He shielded his eyes from glare of the red-gold sun. “And you must be Jon.” He climbed to his feet and held out a hand. Jon took it and shook it and offered him a gleeful smile.

“I'm Jackson.”

Ariel's eyes snapped up. “You must be Jon's brother, right?”

They looked similar. They both had round, gently curving faces, black eyes and black hair —even if Jackson's had chunks dyed all manner of strange colours— the same graceful features. Even their stances mimicked each other, both boys holding onto their belt loops, arms crossed to cling to the opposite sides. Ariel was sure his eyes flitted between the two of them more than once.

“Have you been gossiping about me, squirt?” Jackson elbowed Jon in the ribs.

Jon stepped on his toe.

“Nothing too bad,” Ariel assured him quickly. “And it's all third hand information. So I take it with a grain of salt anyway.” He closed his mouth, forcing himself to stop talking. He ran his hands through his curly hair, trying to smooth it down so that he'd look just a little bit more presentable.

Jackson flashed a smile, all bright teeth and smooth lips. “Fantastic.” He rounded on his brother. “You two. Scram. Adults need to talk.”

“You're not adults,” Jon protested, leaning closer to Jackson.

“Ariel is,” Keegan replied. “He had a Bar Mitzvah, therefore he is technically a man in our religion. So it's technically one adult and one adolescent who need to talk.”

“I got arrested once. Does that count?” Jackson leaned back on his heels and arched a slender black eyebrow at Ariel. “Come on. We'll go sit over there, out of earshot of those bats at the PTA.”

Ariel let himself be lead to a space beneath the shade of a pine tree towards the back of the field. “God,” Jackson muttered, sitting down on the wet grass. “I thought I would never find someone my own age. Sorry for kidnapping you.”
“It's okay, you're forgiven on grounds of my feeling exactly the same way. I can only hang out with my socially awkward eighth grade brother for so long, you know?”

Enthusiastically, Jackson nodded. “I know exactly.”

Ariel took small sips of melted ice cream from his cup.

“Does that taste any better than the rainbow sherbet?”

Ariel snorted. “It tastes like liquefied ice with sugar dumped in it.” He stared down at the empty cup in his hands.

“Liquefied ice? Like...water?” Jackson offered him a half smile. “Give me that, okay?” Ariel handed the half-crumpled paper cup and Jackson tossed it towards a trash can nearby. It sailed in without difficulty. “Varsity basketball, man.”

Ariel leaned back in the grass to stare at the long needles of the pine tree that stretched above them. “I'm a painter,” he said. “I don't do sports. The most exercise I get is running up and down the stairs with all my supplies. If you ask me, that should be an Olympic sport.”

It made Jackson laugh.

“I'm sure you'd take gold,” he teased through his uninhibited gigglings. “You have something in your hair,” he said. He leaned over to brush Ariel's red hair with the flat of his palm.

“Oh. Thanks.” Ariel felt a blush spread across the back of his neck and seep into his spine. He offered up the shyest of smiles.

Jackson played basketball. Jackson wanted to be an archaeologist. Jackson was from California.

“Are you guys done yet?” Keegan asked as he padded up to them. “I want to go. It's boring here, right Jon?”

Jon shrugged. “Yeah, it kind of is,” he confirmed. He leaned back on his heels. “And I really want to get pizza.”
Jackson glanced at Ariel. “You're welcome to come with us,” he said.

“Oh. Sure. I'll follow you in my car, okay?” Ariel smiled broadly.

Keegan had slid into the passenger's seat and Ariel had fired up their mother's decaying car. “I saw that,” he said, fixing his green eyes on Ariel. “The victory fist pump.”

“And?”

“Good taste.”

Those glaring grammar errors that make you want to skin me? Just point them out so I can fix them. Sick + WriMo = bad proofing skillz.

That sex wasn't really supposed to be erotic. It's supposed to be DEPRESSING.
Because that's what this story is. Depressing.

I want to thank my reviewers, who have all been very kind to me.
I heart you?