Read Poppy Z. Brite - 1992 - Lost Souls for Free Online Page A

night.
                 The
Bauhaus tape ended, and no one put anything else on. The party began to break
up. A hippie-looking girl Nothing didn’t know flashed a peace sign at Laine as
she left.
                 Julie
got up to leave too; she was supposed to be grounded, she explained, because
her mother had smelled beer on her breath when she came home from a party last
weekend.
                 “Bummer,”
said Laine, not sounding as if he cared very much.
                 Nothing
stared at the floor, feeling depressed. He had seen Julie so strung out on acid
that she thought the flesh was melting from her bones, and her parents couldn’t
even deal with her drinking beer.
                 As
she was about to leave, Julie reached into her purse. “You can have this,” she
told Nothing. “You said you liked it, and I never listen to it—sounds like shitkicker music to me.” She handed him a cheap
home-produced cassette tape. The crayon writing on the liner said LOST SOULS?
                 Nothing’s
heart quickened. When he had heard this tape at Julie’s house, something in it
had sung out to him. He remembered a snatch of lyrics: “We are not afraid… let
the night
    come … we are not
afraid.” The singer’s golden voice chanting those words had awakened in him a
courage he didn’t know he had, a belief that someday his life would be more
than this. But to show an excess of feeling in this crowd was considered uncool ; as far as Nothing could tell, you were supposed to
act bored all the time. He only smiled at Julie, said “Thanks,” and stuck the
cassette in his backpack.
                 As
soon as Julie was gone, Laine got up and put on a Cure tape. Then he came and
lay beside Nothing on the floor. His bleached white-blond hair fell in long
strands over his eyes. His hand found Nothing’s and squeezed. Nothing didn’t
squeeze back, but he didn’t pull away.
                 “Do
you want a blowjob?” said Laine. He was one of the youngest of the crowd, only
fourteen, but he cultivated arcane talents. Nothing had seen the legend Laine
Gives Killer Head inscribed on more than one bathroom wall at school.
                 “What
about Julie?”
                 “Julie
doesn’t turn me on much,” said Laine. “I like you, though. I think you’re
really cool.” lazily he propped himself on his elbow and reached over to touch
Nothing’s face. Nothing closed his eyes and let himself be touched. The contact
felt good. Laine hugged him, buried his face in Nothing’s shoulder; he smelled
of shampoo and clove cigarettes.
                 “Seriously,”
he said. “I haven’t given you a blowjob since August. I want to.”
                 “Okay,”
Nothing told him. He pulled Laine’s face to his and kissed him, nudging his
mouth gently open. Laine’s mouth tasted delicately salty, like tears. He
suddenly felt terribly sad for Laine, who was too young to know so much. He
wanted to show Laine some gesture of tenderness, something that might make them
both feel as young as they really were.
                 But
Laine’s tongue was already tracing a wet path down Nothing’s chest; Laine’s
hands were already unfastening Nothing’s jeans and tugging them open. Nothing
stared up at Robert Smith’s magnified mouth. The singer’s lush clotted voice
surrounded him, making him feel again as if he were tumbling between those
lips. Laine’s hands and tongue worked him with a skill born of practice.
Nothing felt something twist inside him. He put his hand down to touch Laine’s
brittle hair, and Laine looked up at him with clear, guileless eyes.
                 As
he began to come, Nothing thought again of the black van that had driven past
the school today, of the snatch of song he had heard trailing from its windows.
He wondered where the van was now.