Turn
[ permutations of bb/dm/ew . after A Single ] R
From his place on the bed, Billy giggled quietly behind his hands as he watched and waited his turn.
- from "A Single"
The walls of the Motel 6 are paper thin, as Dominic figures out in the morning when he's woken up by the shower. The sound of running water seeps through the walls of the room and into Dominic's dreams, and when he slowly opens his eyes, the alarm clock on the nightstand tells him that it's only six minutes past seven. The curtains are still drawn in the darkened motel room and in the even dimness, the neon green numbers of the clock face cast a faint digital glow across the pillow. He finds a chalky taste coating his molars as he runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth and it takes him a moment to remember where exactly his mouth had been the night before.
"Rough night?" Billy asks, from a distance. Dominic sits up and squints into the darkness, and waits until the small amount of light coming from underneath the bathroom door paints Billy into the shadows. He is halfway across the room, peering at his own face in the mirror above the dresser, standing precariously on tiptoe as he leans forward, calf muscles straining to maintain his balance. When Billy turns towards him in the darkness, his teeth flash pale blue with a flickering smile, and Dominic wonders what the inside of Billy's mouth must taste like this early in the morning.
Billy opens his mouth to speak, but suddenly a different sound comes through the wall-high and wavering over the water groaning through the pipes. "Can you hear that?" Dom asks, struggling to his knees amidst the bunched sheets, and presses an urgent ear to the cream-colored wall. Billy watches from his side of the room as the amusement spreads across Dominic's tired face, his mouth hanging slightly open in a small O-shape.
A single moan emanates from the room next door, dissipating into a series of short, clipped gasps, and Dominic begins to giggle, giddily. It's clearly a woman's voice now, which then begins to speak words neither of them can decipher; its pitch rises and falls and then stops. A thud comes through the wall, quickly followed by another, then another and Dominic cups a hand over his smirking mouth. "A bit early for it, innit?" Dom asks, pinching his tongue between his pursed lips and Billy laughs.
"Well, we're just off to a late start," Billy says, stripping off his t-shirt, and crawls up onto the bed, towards him.
:::
Billy's breath condenses on Dominic's skin in the heat-on the back of his neck and on the sensitive spot between his shoulder blades; it beads and runs in heavy drops that Billy collects with his mouth. The bed groans beneath his knees as Dominic's chest drops forward and his hips push backwards and his hands grip at the top of the headboard with white, colorless knuckles. Through the wall, the woman's voice rises into a sharp, plaintive wail and Dom thinks he can hear the name "David" lingering somewhere amidst the shapeless vowels. "Dom," Billy says once, pushing harder against him, so hard that Dom's head bumps awkwardly against the wall and he has to catch himself with splayed fingers. He leans his forehead forward against the cool plaster and then turns, pressing his face and his ear up against the sound coming from beyond it. The wall is slightly moist beneath his cheek and its uneven surface digs into the stretches of Dominic's palms. He wonders if there will be bruises on his face and his hands by this time tomorrow.
Something burns in the pit of Dominic's stomach as Billy stretches himself against his back, his chest flush against the deepening arc of Dominic's body. Dominic is mumbling quietly, repeating some of the words he whispered into the window the night before as Elijah left marks on his hips with his flat, blunt fingers. He isn't listening to himself, but he can feel himself promising, taunting, begging Billy to please touch me there, yes there, with your teeth, Lij would never do that, harder, you prick, fuck me harder. The muscles beneath his ribcage begin to ache as Billy leans into his ear and whispers, "They can't hear you yet, Dom." He places his hands on Dominic's wrists and his weight onto Dominic's back and Dominic can feel the slow burn in his stomach spread to insides of his thighs. In his mind, Dominic imagines Elijah listening from the shower-one hand touching the cold wet tiles, the other trailing across the heat of his own skin as the water runs into his eyes and down his face.
"Louder," Billy says. "Say it again."
:::
By the time the shower shuts off, the noise through the wall has stopped, and Billy lies unfurled beside Dom, spelling words of devotion out onto his skin with dull nails and sharp teeth. "Your turn, Dom," Elijah says from the bath, and wanders into the bedroom with his hair still wet. Behind him, the bathroom light is still on and the door stands slightly ajar, letting the humidity from Elijah's shower curl up along the ceiling. A thin sliver of yellow light cuts through the blue-black darkness of the room and across Elijah's bare body. Dom watches as Elijah pivots the weight of his slight frame languidly back and forth between his two legs, stretching both arms above his head. The spaces between his ribs go black and hollow as his muscles move shadows across his skin; he purrs softly as a greedy smile inches its way across his face and he begins to relax his taut limbs.
Something in the way Elijah's hips are cocked to one side reminds Dominic of art history classes in secondary school. He remembers trying to even out his breath as he shifted books into his straining lap on the days they studied Hellenistic statues. Nervously, he would glance around the room and sit on his fumbling hands while images of nude Grecian gods flickered across his vision in the dimmed classroom. He always imagined Orpheus would look something like Elijah, as he hovered at the edge of the borrowed bed with elusive eyes and parted lips and clean skin.
The bed dips underneath Elijah's weight as he kneels onto one of the corners. "My turn," Dominic hears him say.
"No. Our turn," Billy says, his hand skidding over slick skin. Elijah's hair leaves shiny wet streaks across Billy's cheeks, which Dom brushes at with his fingertips and puts into Billy's mouth. There is a small pause when nothing happens, and all Dominic can hear is the sound of a moth batting against one of the windows and the ticking of Elijah's wristwatch on the night table.
"Our turn," Elijah smirks, and then suddenly Dominic cannot tell the difference between Billy's mouth and Elijah's fingers as both creep along the edges of his body.
The bed moans beneath them as Elijah shifts his weight across Dom's body-the hushed murmur of moist skin against cheap cotton following his movement. Billy draws himself up against Dominic and suggests something wicked in Elijah's ear, which makes him laugh into the skin below Dominic's collarbone. Dominic is speaking softly again-delicate words this time that he doesn't understand or recognize-and his mouth cannot decide which name to say first, so it smears one name into the next instead.
Each noise in the room is now worshipful but hushed-whispers of the bedroom hidden from the middle-aged maids as they begin to make their morning rounds. It is the sound of shameless adoration tinged with two hundred dollars worth of discretion, and through the passing months it is a sound that each of them has grown accustomed to.
:::
In the murmuring stillness of Room 6B, someone slides a generous hand into the small of Dominic's back. The sound of his taut voice is beginning to bleed out from behind the door and into the hallway, and Dominic has to force himself to cover his face with both hands in order to stop the noise.
