Handcuffs

When April kissed him, she bit his tongue.

She didn't manage to make him bleed, but only because he pulled away shocked. Oddly enough, she didn't seem to apologize; in fact, she was smiling coyly and her eyes sparkled with arousal.

She pushed him down on the couch, sliding her hands up his shirt to stroke her fingers against his chest.

"Let's do it, baby."

As usual, she didn't want him… she wanted smack… she didn't ever seem to want him anymore, unless she was high.

"Please," she murmured, startling him and leaning down. She pressed her round breasts up close to his face.

It made him sick to realize that she only wanted him when she was high. He might have even described it as jealousy; smack could stoke her fire when he no longer could. When he came home late and wanted nothing more than to just feel her against him, she would turn away from him in bed and say she was tired. Only in moments like these, when she sensed his hesitancy at getting high, was she willing to tease him. She was his cheap, selective whore.

When her lips touched his for the second time, she nibbled at the tip of his tongue. He expected it, so he didn't draw away, but patiently waited for her to finish.

"Come on."

Roger acquiesced.

His anger was bittersweet and he wanted to hang onto it. He didn't want the heroin to sweep it away and hide it in some dark corner, only to have it escape when the high faded.

April reached over his head and into the drawer.

"FUCK!" She cursed and leapt off him, ripping the drawer open and searching through its emptiness for the heroin that had been there yesterday.

Roger lay back and a soft smile of relief crept up on the sides of his face. It was the first time he had been genuinely thankful that smack wasn't there. "Who cares, we don't need it. Come back over here."

He hoped he could coax her back. He had to believe that she would remember how wonderful the joining of their bodies was when the heroin didn't hamper it.

April didn't move.

"Your fucking friend tossed our shit again!"

Roger rolled over and felt the anger swelling inside of me again. When he looked at April, he saw nothing attractive in her twisted face. Her crumpled form on the floor was so undesirable that he could no longer comprehend why he had felt any need for her before.

"I hate that fucking loser! Fuck him!" She stood up and was moving toward Mark's room.

Roger moved faster than she could and jumped between her and the door. April wasn't violent by nature, but he too had been that close to a high and then had it snatched away. There was nothing like it…it made you want to kill whoever had stolen it from you.

He wouldn't let that happen to Mark.

"Back off Mark," Roger snarled, and grabbed her wrist when she brought it up to strike him.

"Get that straight-edged-fucker out of my apartment now, or I'll throw him out myself." She twisted her wrist, trying to get it away from his grasp, but he held fast.

"First off, it's not your apartment, it's mine and it's his. And secondly, Mark isn't going anywhere. So back the fuck off!" He shoved her backward and she fell against the couch.

"You're just like him, you know!"

"I'd much rather be like him, thank you!"

She gathered her feet under her and leapt toward him, like a wild cat about to strike. Her hand managed to contact the side of his face before he could push her away.

He threw her hard against the ground. "Get out! Fuck you and your addiction! Get out! Get out!" He lifted her up, her feet dangling several inches from the ground. All the anger he had been keeping inside for so long was exploding out of him.

He dropped her outside on the landing and slammed the door behind her.

Roger only managed to wait two minutes before he couldn't stand it any longer. The apartment smelled like her. He had to get out.

He needed a distraction… a very feminine… very beautiful distraction to take his mind off her.

Mark was reading a wedding invitation from Benny when the voices rose and the door slammed the first time. He ignored the invitation and the noise; when April and Roger fought, Mark's presence was like dropping a match into boiling acid—all you got was a bigger explosion.

The second time, he was jotting down script ideas (all of which ended up crumpled in his trash bin). The voices had died down; April had probably left. A procession of sounds snaked around the hinges of Mark's door: Roger sighing, quick footsteps, the jingle of keys muffling into a clenched hand, the hurried rustling of paper, and the door slamming again.

A mixture of curiosity and writer's block led Mark out of the bedroom. His eyes drifted to the dull metal of their tabletop. Sure enough, Roger had taken the keys. The songwriter had also left their phone numbers/business cards/addresses (usually contained to a paper plate near the phone) strewn across the table.

Mark sighed and began putting the papers back. He was interested, though, to see which ones Roger had singled out; they sat at the far corner of the table, where the keys had been. Mark pictured Roger glancing at the address, jaw set beneath hollow eyes, and then racing out the door.

His fingers drifted to the misplaced sheets. They were a couple of flyers the two friends had picked up on one of the rare, awkward clubbing nights Roger had insisted on. Mark opened the flyer and was greeted by a flash of exposed cleavage—an advertisement for the Cat Scratch Club.

Shit. The last thing I need is for Roger to blow the last of our money on a stripper because he got into a fight with April.

I'm going to be awkward as hell in a strip club.

Mark sighed. He grabbed his scarf and the spare key. The door closed a third time.

The place reeked of sex.

You could lose more than your morals here. You could lose your identity, your humanity. Mark panicked when he was overwhelmed by the seizures of light; neon lights, musty, their color diluted by dancing waves of cigarette smoke and tacky fog machines. Apparently, he was underdressed—everywhere, men were in suits, even tuxedoes, with their hair gelled and their fingers groping wads of money. An air of anticipation pervaded the vortex of sin. All eyes were on the vacant stage; the tables beside it, centered around ceiling-high poles, were full of men sipping on cocktail drinks.

It took Mark a few dizzying minutes to remember why he was here. Then, as his eyes scanned the area by the stage, he saw a man just as out of place as him.

Of course Roger is right up front.

Mark pushed his way through the seething crowds. He was small and agile; the most he got were some dirty looks, shoves, and curse words.

"Gentlemen, our show is about to begin!"

A roar of cheers rose like the blast from a cannon. Whistles pierced the smoke-filled air; dollar bills were waved in beefy fists. Mark was dwarfed by the sound; he skirted around a couple more tables, pushing against chairs and fat, screaming businessmen, and collapsed in the seat beside Roger.

"Mark!" Roger let out a misplaced whoop and turned his bloodshot eyes towards his best friend. The gaze was vacant, wandering in patches of neon.

The songwriter raised a near-empty glass. "Mark. You've got to have one of these. I don't know what's in it, but I've had like six!"

Mark caught his breath and stared. "And how much did that cost you?" he said, raising his voice above the noise of the announcer and the crowds.

"Pish posh. Money." Roger drained the glass, holding it delicately to his lips and sticking out his pinky, channeling the spirit of some dead British aristocrat.

Worry about money later. "Rog," said Mark. "Let's get out of here, ok? Let's head back to the loft, we can…get some pizza or something."

Roger was only half-listening. The announcer's voice swept up in a crescendo, and the spectators let out a greater torrent of cheers.

The dance was beginning.

Roger hushed Mark—not that it was necessary, as Mark was entranced by the moving stage. The crowd quieted to a few whispers and cat-calls. Swirling fog was now concentrated on the center of the stage; a spotlight focused on a rising pole and the body that rose with it.

"Roger…" whispered Mark. "We should go, Rog."

"Shut the fuck up, I want to see her."

Mark almost protested, but truthfully, he wanted to see her too. A cascade of dark hair was draped around the pole. Two brown arms rose over her head with the ease and grace of some exotic jungle lynx, culminating in a pair of shining handcuffs that encased fragile wrists. A face made of soft tilting angles slanted up into a sliver of half-light—she was beautiful, beautiful enough to make pain twist in Mark's gut.

His lips parted and he wanted to close his eyes and not see the lascivious way her hips rolled. It wasn't as though he disapproved of their profession. He knew exactly what it was like to sell your soul, doing a job just because you had to get by. He just felt awkward watching them, like he was spying on something he wasn't supposed to see.

He didn't derive any pleasure from it.

On the contrary, Roger seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. His eyes were wide and his tongue crept out of the corner of his mouth and touched the corner of his lip. He had the look of a man starved.

As Roger watched the woman slide down the poll and spread her legs apart, Mark watched a look spread across his face, a look that he hadn't seen there for months. Roger didn't look at April that way anymore.

"Roger, we should go." Mark said. He reached across the table to take the drink from his friend's limp hand.

Roger turned and the excitement melted. "Yes… we should."

He rose slowly and together they left the club, but Roger didn't take his eyes off the dancer until they she was stolen from sight by the closing of the door. And even then, he kept glancing back over his shoulder.

Mark had to wrap his hand around Roger's shoulders to keep the songwriter from stumbling and falling over.

"I'm just like her, you know." Roger whispered.

"What?" Mark murmured. He hadn't been really listening, because he was certain that Roger would only talk nonsense with all the liquor in his blood.

"Chained… I can't get away from it… handcuffed… just like her…" He leaned his head down on Mark's shoulder. "I can't do it, Mark. I can't get free."

"You could always just quit dancing." Mark replied.

Mark didn't quite understand what he meant, but when Roger leaned in closer and whispered something that must have been a thank you, the filmmaker smiled. He was glad that at least Roger understood.

Mark would remember this moment months later, when the chains of April and heroin addiction slipped off Roger's wrists into a den of blood and memory. He would remember this moment every time that dancer tilted her soft-angled face up into the moonlight from the flat beneath them.

If only Roger would remember when the morning came…if only he'd remember something besides the handcuffs.