smokeSCREEN: bookTHREE

"Describe how it feels…"

"Like… the waters rising. Every time you… stroke… it raises the… sort of…" he takes a moment to gasp, and I let my other hand stroke his face as I kiss his cheek. I stroke him faster.

"So what happens when the water level gets too high?" I say, tightening my grip. Perhaps his whole sex thing is easier than I'd thought. His eyes burst open – they're huge.

"I have no idea," he says, gasping as he grins. One of his hands has curiously found my bottom, and it squeezes me, seemingly in response to my efforts.

I smile softly, lean down, and kiss him as I begin to thrash my hand on him. His grip on my ass tightens top being near-painful, and I whisper softly to him;

"I love you…"

His eyes burst open, and he's pressing my face to his – kissing me – and his entire body seems stiff as a board. Soon he spasms like he'd been shot – but he doesn't stop kissing me. I don't stop stroking, and I notice my hand is warm, and slick. I kiss him softer, and stroke slowly, finally looking down at my hand.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

"Wicked," he says, still catching his breath. I raise my sticky hand and give it a sniff. It's strange – silver in the pale light, but milky.

"Cool," I whisper.

* * *

* * *

somethung ugly this way comes / through my fingers sliding inside / all these blessings all these works / i'm careless underneath your cover // search for pleasure / search for pain / in this world / now i am undying // my code / my flag / my nation / helpless /// black black heart /// what, would you offer more // would you make it easier on me // to satisfy /// i want fire ///

* * *

* * *

I duck under the black partition and pop up beside Cypress in the tiny enclosed room of black that looks out over Assiniboine Park and much of the forest. An ideal sniper's post. He's smoking a cigarette, and he spins me so I'm standing in front of him and folds an arm across my chest.

Maybe he plans on using me as a human shield, if anyone spots us.

Maybe he just wants to hold me. He presents me with his cigarette, and I take a slow drag. The warm wind outside blows against my naked skin – and I realize I'm exposed for all the world to see.

"So tell me something about you," he says, breathing softly on my neck. I smile and think for a moment.

"My name is Beth."

"Hello, Beth," he says as he squeezes me. "That's a good name. Suits you." I laugh.

"No it doesn't. It sounds like a housewife or a nun or something…"

"It sounds like someone who thinks a lot. Someone who's sensitive. Someone reliable. Beth's a good name." I smile and kiss his arm.

"What's your real name?"

"I don't remember – people have been calling me Cypress since I was three."

"Why?"

"I climbed a forty-foot Cypress tree in our backyard. Got twenty feet up before anyone noticed."

"What happened?"

"Broke my hip and my arm. My dad started teaching me Zen that year. Mom thought I was too young."

"Zen?"

"Eastern religion. Allows you to separate yourself from the present to make better descisions. Sort of a… basically, the idea is that everything is nothing."

"That sounds shitty."

"No, no, it's not. It's wicked. Look at it this way; if we were to fall from this tower, what does it matter?"

"Well – we'd die."

"So?"

"So? I don't want to die," I tell him. I hope he has a point.

"Is this a tragedy? For some, yes, for others, no. It's just something that is. This fact has no value until it is reflected on by others. This would merely be the end of our story."

…how does he do that?

"Remember the Romeo and Juliet movie by the guy who did the one with Nicole Kidman?"

"Yeah – Baz Lurhman."

"Yeah – it would be just like Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in that."

"I suppose. But they died by choice."

"Then every moment becomes a suicide call," I say. "Every moment, you'd be thinking to yourself – is this the high point of my life? Is this where I want to be when I die?"

Cypress kisses my neck before disappearing under the partition. I duck under it myself and return to the bed, reaching past him to open up the yearbook from our elementary school. I flip to the boy he said was him and point to the mysterious letters benath it.

"Find your name," I tell him.

"It doesn't have my name – just my initials. O.M, see?" He points to two chunky characters on the page.

"Maybe you're an Oliver."

"I always thought of myself more of an Oswald."

"The guy who shot Kennedy?" I ask.

"Or so the Germans would have you believe," he grins, tossing the book aside. I laugh and stretch out on top of him.

"You know so much about how it was before," I say. "Tell me stuff."

"Well, here's something not many people know – cigarettes are really bad for you."

"Really?"

"Totally. But no one can stop once they start."

"Son of a bitch…" He raises a mock-scolding finger.

"Ah ah – are we Zen?"

"Son of a bitch – but so what?"

"That's my girl." He sqeezes me tight and I grin.

"I am so Zen!" I kiss him softly and he kisses back – we are comfortable. "Tell me more."

"At the rate mankind was going, it would have destroyed the planet. All the lights blocked out the stars. Pollution was killing all the trees – it was fucking up the sky so the Sun burns instead of heals."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I kinda' always figured it was our job to learn from their mistakes."

"Can you give me a blowjob?" I ask. He stares at me.

"What?"

"I know it's something sexual, and I know guys are supposed to it… do you know how to do it to me?"

"Well… it's sort of something you can only do to a guy."

"No way… what can you only do to a girl?"

"A lot more."

My eyebrow peaks along with my attention.

"Really."

He nods.

"Oh yes."

I close my eyes and flop down on the bed besite him, arching my back and getting comfy.

"Do something, then," I say. It's our last night together, I intend to enjoy it discovering what I can.

"Anything?" he asks. I open my eyes long enough to give him a scolding look.

"Something nice," I say, closing my eyes again and sighing as I feel his hand slide down my torso to my crotch. Already, I'm tingling. Now his lips graze my cheek – he kisses me softly. Upper lip. Then lower. Then my chin, as he gently begins to stroke me again. He kisses my throat, my shoulders, but already I know I want him to skip ahead to whatever master plan he has in mind.

My hands tangle in his hair and I gently push him further down my torso until his face hovers at my hips. I can feel his breath on my thighs, and they spread of their own accord. My eyes burst open – not at any touch – but at my exposure to him.

For a second, I consider that I have no weapons – I am completely at his mercy. If he should-

His tongue trails up and down my thighs.

-I have no defense if he turns on me at some point-

"Whoahhhh…." His lips are stroking me now… even his tongue… it's so strange….

A voice whispers in my ear; Just trust him. He loves you, too.

"He does…" I whisper, my half-open eyes unfocused, staring at the wall at the head of the bed.

His tongue is at the top, now – it's so intense – it's too intense.

He stops.

"What the fuck is that?" I ask as my back relaxes – he's kissing my thighs.

"It's called your clitoris," he says. "Or I think that's how you pronounce it." I reach down and touch it – it sparks.

"What is it?" I ask, touching it softly – testing it.

"Sort of like a bundle of really happy nerves," he says, bowing his head and licking it again.

"S'cool," I gasp. "That's cool…" One hand automatically grips his head as my legs wrap around his head, the other finding my breast. "That's cool," I moan. "Oh, fuck…" My breathing is coming in quick gasps. He's licking quickly, and has a finger gently curling against the roof of my insides, and I can feel it building again. "…cool…" I can feel it building again. "Fuck…" My eyes burst open. "Fuck!"

"Are you alright?"

"Don't stop!" I crush his head back into me and he resumes whatever he's doing, while I stretch back and my vision blurs. It crashes against me like waves of heat from a bonfire – burning – screaming – calling out as it fills me up – everything explodes – and now it's smoking. Now it's cinders. Now he stops licking and sits up, grinning down at me.

I am the fireat the end of the night that the last watchman stares into. That fire that is just glowing embers, that cool deceptively cold glow.

"This…" I say through laiboured breath, "is the coolest thing ever – whoah…" He's stroking me – it's not his finger.

Something large and hard glides up and down my sex. I pick my head up and stare at him. He's waiting for my approval as it gently strokes and nearly probes me – but not quite.

And suddenly, I wonder if we should.

A million plagues of doubt crash through my head. He's using me. He'd be doing the same thing with Michelle. Perhaps he really is a sociopath and doesn't even feel love. It certainly would explain the utter disinterest in his own fate.

"This afternoon," I say. "You said you watch me."

"Yeah."

"Why?" He grins a near-shy grin and looks away.

"You know why."

"I want hear you say it." He stares down at me, smiling.

"Y'ever think that it's like… you an' me were born with the same brain? We just kinda'… get it – y'know? Each other, I mean." I nod.

"Yeah. I been waiting to hear you say it, though."

"Cripes, I though that since the night in the South End." I draw my hips away from him, raising an eyebrow.

"You could have told me."

"Yeah, but the rule was I couldn't touch you then," he says, still managing to stroke me with it.

"That's still the rule," I remind him.

"Yeah, well… now it's just you and me," he says – stroking it up and down – up and down. And I want to. But the voices bark; What about when he gets back to the tower?

Stroking me with it.

"What about when it's not?" I say.

He leans down to me now – his lips and eyes hovering above me.

"Then I'll tell anyone who'll listen that I'm with Crow," he says. Of course he says that. He always knows exactly what to say.

And the voices bark; But what if he's lying?

"Say it again." I lift my hips.

"I love you." He pushes gently forward, and at first it slides in easily. Now it hurts. But I nod.

"It's cool," I say. "It's cool."

He pulls back and pushes forward again. This time, a little deeper. And repeat. And repeat. And now it doesn't hurt. Now it's okay. Now it's really okay – and the strokes are still gentle. Rhythmic. Like the waves on a beach.

"Oh…" I start.

"Wow," we say together. He's staring down at me, and my legs wrap around his hips.

"How are you?" I ask – but my breath is starting to come quick. I'm starting to raise my hips faster and faster to meet his – and he's adapting to my new stroke.

"I'm wicked," he says – a hand stroking my breast. The nipple flares to life and sends sparks through my chest – they meet with the waves from my crotch somewhere around my heart and cascade together.

Now things are becoming fuzzy. I know I'm bucking back against him – I know I'm scratching the shit out of his back. I know I'm yelling something.

I'm sure of his eyes. Whenever I look for him, he knows it. His eyes are there.

And they're so right. So accepting.

But I know I'm yelling something. And somehow, I'm on top of him. I'm arching my back, biting his fingertips while he strokes my breasts and bottom. While he grips my hair as I bounce. Every stroke is right on the button. Every stroke is one step closer. Every stroke is coming harder.

I look down at him, and he's arching his back too – stiff as a board. His hand grips my ass – and I'm there. He's saying something – all I hear is the blood in my ears. All I hear is my heart pounding. All I feel his him. I can't see anything.

Why can't I see anything.

I feel him again – so much – and I jump.

Why can't I see anything?

But I feel his arms drape across me as I collapse on his chest.

Slowly, my vision turns from starbursts to red before gently revealing the true nature of our surroundings.

We're not somewhere without gravity or atmosphere. We're still in that Castle tower in Assiniboine Park. My breath still comes in quick gasps – I reach up and stroke his face – his hands tousel my hair.

"This is what I want forever," I say suddenly. I hadn't planned on it. But now that it's out, I realize I mean it. "You and me – alone, forever."

"You'd miss the others," he says. It's true, I would. "No I wouldn't."

"Liar."

"Still… this is…"

"Perfect," he says. I nod, smiling.

"So perfect." He smiles, and I roll off him to reach for our smokes. "Tell me something else about you," I say. He accepts a lit cigarette, takes a drag and says;

"Well, now I want to find out what my real name is," he says. "I suddenly realize I don't like being named after my first memorable fuck-up."

"That's one way to look at it," I say, tapping into an ashtray.

"What's the other?"

"That you were named after your first adventure," I grin. He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head.

"I'm all adventured out," he says. I sit up and our lips meet, stroking and probing gently. I love him.

"I don't think so," I tell him. A hand comes up and strokes his face – his eyes – that cheekbone – the strong jaw. "I think this swordsman with no name has plenty more adventures coming to him."

* * *

* * *

did you give up / did it get easier / did all those things you wanted come together in the end / cause i for one / was like the eden man / did you ever really notice / i never really cared // she smiled and looked at me and said /// you know don't know what it's like /// you don't know what it's like /// you don't know what it's like ///

* * *

* * *

We parted ways two hours before dawn.

We'd stayed up all night. Talking. Making love.

That's what I've decided to call it. Cypress called it that once, and I've decided I like it.

"Making love," I mouth to myself as the Glass Tower begins to shine on the horizon. Cypress is probably just getting to Westwood by now. Far on the horizon, the fires are already burning. But I'll see him again. I know it.

The gates burst open as I walk up. Michelle and most of Floor Thirteen storm out, Michelle pressing a finger to her lips. She hands me my shotgun and belt, motions to the gatekeeper, and begins to pull me off towards the forks.

"If Phoebe knows you're back, she'll keep you in there for questions all day," she tells me. "Suit up."

I slide into my belt and double-check the shotgun.

"So what happened last night?" Sophie asks. I grin.

* * *

The Forks used to be like, festival grounds. Concerts were held there. There's an old train station and an untra-hip mall, with miles of parking where the two rivers split.

We come out off main street, through one of the old tunnels. A lot of the buildings are still blocking our view of the terminal, so we slink forward slowly, watching for any sign of movement.

"Remember, it's just one," Lisa says. We push forward, around the old TV station and emerge in front of the Johnston Terminal. We all freeze. We all stare.

Michelle begins to take a step backward, but it's too late.

We're all fucked.