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Kim is as fastidious in his personal upkeep as a cat. He takes anywhere from one to two showers a day, depending on where your duties as RCM officers take you.
KIM KITSURAGI: He makes it clear, through a raised eyebrow and a well-placed khm, that he expects you to take at least one shower daily.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: In the past, you had used showers more for their sobering properties -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Or for their anti-overdose effects.
LOGIC: Which are dubious at best.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: - than how most people use showers.
LOGIC: I.E., to get clean.
AUTHORITY: But since you’re living with Kim now, what he says goes.
YOU: So you start showering every evening, going in after Kim does with your bundle of clothes. The tub is damp and slick, the air fogged and hot and smelling of his soap.
PERCEPTION: You can’t see yourself in the mirror. It’s better that way.
YOU: It’s dim in there, at night. You leave just the light over the sink on and wash yourself in the soft and forgiving light, running your hands over your body.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Its soft fat and thick hair and puckered scars.
YOU: Ostensibly, you and Kim are cleaning your old apartment up to something less like your own personal version of the People’s Pile and something more like a basement apartment. But you’re both busy, and your free time is spent on other things.
INLAND EMPIRE: Things like sleeping, working on the Kineema, or going to visit places around the city that the voices tell you about.
EMPATHY: Besides, Kim doesn’t like being in your apartment any more than he has to.
VOLITION: Neither do you. It’s sad. Necrotic, even. A black hole where a man tried very hard to die each and every night he couldn’t escape it.
KIM KITSURAGI: After he had driven you back to the 41st precinct and you had spent a long time debriefing with Captain Pryce -
PAIN THRESHOLD - and getting poked at by Gottlieb, who grudgingly praised Kim’s stitches holding your rotten body together -
KIM KITSURAGI: He had gotten your address from Judit.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Jean had just given him the address to a junkyard. Judit had shook her head at him and given Kim your real address.
YOU: And he had driven you back to your apartment, dread looming in you with each kilometer down. “Kim, I don’t think I want to do this,” you’d said.
KIM KITSURAGI: “It’s an apartment, detective. It can’t be that bad.”
YOU: “I mean, you saw my room in the Whirling-in-Rags, right?”
EMPATHY: That was a period of unusual strain for you, he thinks.
YOU: “Kim, I think it’s like that, but worse. Six years of it worse.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Are you starting to remember, detective?” He shot you a sideways look, his hands tight on the steering levers.
YOU: “No, but I can feel it. Can’t you? I mean it’s like, it’s taking over the whole block.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm.”
INLAND EMPIRE: It’s not a no.
NECROTIC APARTMENT: When you had gotten there you had had trouble opening the lock, your hands shaking suddenly with the spare key.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim took it from you. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”
YOU: You let him. Kim opened the door to your dark basement apartment. It creaked, horribly, like the hinges had been damaged.
INTERFACING: They had. As if a wild, drunken animal had been penned up inside, desperate to get out. And also, if a wild, drunken animal had been locked outside, desperate to get in.
NECROTIC APARTMENT: The apartment was bad. Kim flicked on the light by the door before you could stop him and revealed your drunken hovel in all its squalor. Like the overturned couch, which had been in that position for some time, considering the piles of clothes and books and takeout containers and empty bottles - both the alcohol and pill kind - on it. The kitchen was repulsive; cockroaches scattered when you stepped forward. The pile of bottles of Commodore Red and Potent Pilsner had overflowed the bin so far that someone -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: You, Harry-boy -
NECROTIC APARTMENT: - had started to set them up like dominoes. You continued on, going down the hallway - a big hole in the wall that a Guillaume le Million poster didn’t quite cover.
NECROTIC BEDROOM: You went into the bedroom.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: It is a nest of pain, a den where an animal has gone to die.
NECROTIC BEDROOM: The mattress was half-off the bed; the sheets were three-quarters off it, and everything was clearly soaked in unmentionable fluids. Pill bottles everywhere.
EMPATHY: But worse than all this - the filth, the squalor - was the pain you could feel streaming out of every surface like the Pale.
INLAND EMPIRE: A hole in the world in your apartment.
KIM KITSURAGI: When you turned around, Kim was picking an RCM t-shirt up off the end of the bed.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Don’t touch that -
KIM KITSURAGI: Too late. There was an unreadable expression on his face as he tried to peel it off his glove, then peel it off the other hand.
VOLITION: You cannot stay here, Harry. It will kill you.
KIM KITSURAGI: He knows. “You can’t stay here, detective.”
YOU: You swallowed the lump in your throat. Then again. The horrible bedroom shimmered in your eyesight. “Kim, there’s no where else for me to go. I could go back to the fishing village…”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighed, as if making a decision he knew he shouldn’t. “You can stay with me. Until we get this cleaned up.”
INLAND EMPIRE: What is this feeling inside us? So light? So full?
VOLITION: Hope.
YOU: You had packed a bag for the week - some clothes that weren’t too gross, a Jamrock Public Library book on entroponetics that was five months overdue. Then you headed into the bathroom to salvage some toiletries.
NECROTIC BATHROOM: A blue-tiled mildewed hole full of stiff clothes set up to dry in the tub. You were debating over taking along a disgusting, black, flattened toothbrush when Kim came into the room.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Don’t take that.” You met his eyes in the mirror. The hallway light haloed him. Between you and the mirror, a monster.
HALF LIGHT: You should have died in Martinaise, brother. That way, no one would’ve ever had to see this.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim cleared his throat. “I have a spare.”
SHIVERS: In a neat mirrored medicine cabinet, among a set of hair-clippers, a carefully stocked first aid kit, a bottle of drouamine -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Ooh.
SHIVERS: - that he will remove from the cabinet the night you move in, putting in his bedroom and feeling guilty and prudent all at the same time - there is also aftershave, an old bottle of cough medicine -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The good kind? The purple stuff?
PAIN THRESHOLD: The lieutenant gets bad bronchitis every winter. A holdover from orphanage illnesses, maybe, or a sign he should quit smoking.
SHIVERS - the purple stuff, the good stuff - among all of this is a spare toothbrush, yellow and cheery.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim looked very tired in your bad bathroom light.
SUGGESTION: Maybe that’s part of the problem. Your landlord hates you and puts bad lights in.
EMPATHY: Your landlord does hate you.
LOGIC: But he probably didn’t put these lights in on purpose.
RHETORIC: They were just the cheapest bulbs on the shelf at the Frittte. After you had smashed them out, again.
HALF LIGHT: Howling loud enough the neighbors could hear you. Like the animal you are.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Is there anything else you want to take?”
YOU: Nothing. There is nothing from this weeping wound you want.
KIM KITSURAGI’S APARTMENT: Kim’s apartment, in contrast, is clean and neat. There is a small kitchenette with a table and two chairs. The second chair was just a nod to convention until you came along.
KIM’S SECOND CHAIR: You are the first person to sit in me. Ever. I’m your chair, now.
KIM’S APARTMENT: There is a living room, where you sleep on a pull-out couch. There is Kim’s bedroom, and his bathroom, which is all-over a pale, washed-out green. Green sink, green tub, green toilet, pale green tiles on the walls. A window to let some light in.
KIM KITSURAGI: He shifted. “It’s not much,” he confessed, as if embarrassed by this shining temple.
YOU: “Kim, I love it.” Your voice was hoarse, eyes shining.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, well, maybe a shower,” and he escaped.
EMPATHY: So you could cry on the couch, alone, and pull yourself together before he got out.
YOU: You have not been back to your apartment aside from a few trips to grab more things: library books to return - they wouldn’t let you back otherwise - more clothes, a pair of running shoes.
RHETORIC: The double rent stings a bit, but you’re too scared to ask Kim to move into his apartment permanently.
SUGGESTION: What if he realizes you’re still there, and kicks you out?
LOGIC: He probably already knows you’re there. Based on the fact that you sleep on his couch, and sit across from the table from him every morning, and night. And drive in to work together, and talk work at the dinner table, and listen to the radio each night, and occasionally rent videos from the Video Revachol down the street, and even grocery shop together…
YOU: You are grateful, every day, that Kim has opened up his home to you. He refuses to let you point this out, once going so far as to leave the apartment in real anger when you insist on pushing the issue. You press to the window to watch him go - it’s an awkward angle, but if you’re halfway in the windowsill, plastered to it like a slime mold, you can see him.
KIM KITSURAGI: He paces back and forth outside his apartment, and then he just walks away.
HALF LIGHT: Leaves you.
EMPATHY: They always leave you.
SUGGESTION: We would leave you too, if we could.
VOLITION: He’s not leaving you.
EMPATHY: He just feels awkward pacing in front of the building. He needs a task. Something to cross off the chain.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He’s definitely leaving you. You should get those drouamine from his nightstand and take them. All of them. Maybe with a bottle of Commodore Red from the Frittte.
LOGIC: The Frittte! Maybe he’s going to the Frittte!
HALF LIGHT: Yeah. The one in Mirova. They’ll meet up there and laugh about you…
VOLITION: Maybe just wait to overdose for ten more minutes. He’ll come back to you.
SHIVERS: A man walks into a Frittte, hands shoved in orange pockets. He moves swiftly, efficiently. There is something he is looking for…
YOU: You wait seven minutes. Then eight. Then nine. And then….
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim comes into view, an orange beacon on the sidewalk like a shooting star, holding a yellow Frittte bag.
YOU: You peel yourself back from the window, lean on the counter nonchalantly.
COMPOSURE: Like you weren’t just thinking about killing yourself just because your roommate went to the corner store. Good job, pal. Real stable, there.
VOLITION: You probably shouldn’t be left alone for long.
KIM KITSURAGI: He comes into the kitchen, puts the bag on the counter.
YOU: You watch him like a dog who has ruined a piece of valuable property and is waiting for your owner to notice.
AUTHORITY: Kim is not your owner.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Oh? Is he not responsible for you? Is he not the one thing in Elysium you knew after you knew yourself? Is he not your touchstone, your anchor, the thing that tethers you to this world?
VOLITION: Do not go down this road again.
INLAND EMPIRE: Too late, brother. You are marching down this road waving flags bearing his face.
1) “What’d you get, Kim?”
2) “Is that booze? I hope it’s booze.”
3) Say nothing. Obviously, you’re making him uncomfortable. He can’t ever get away from you now. Dolores Dei, even she could get away from you once in awhile. When she went to work. She probably ran out of the house as fast as she could, getting lighter and lighter with each step, until she was laughing and running.
YOU: No.
HALF LIGHT: Yes. And every day when she had to come home to you - or come home to wait for you, more accurately, listening to the sounds the house made as it got late with no one else to cover them up, supper long since put away - she would get heavier and heavier.
YOU: No. That’s not true. She wrote that note…
SUGGESTION: Yes. A long time ago. Things change, Harry. You wore her down. You wore her out, in the end, as you do to everyone. You are the infernal machine that keeps on going. You will wear out the world; you will be the only thing left in the end…
RHETORIC: You know she didn’t make dinner for you, at the end? She knew you wouldn’t be home. She hated cooking, anyway. You’d told her once it was because she thought she was too good for it, and she had called you a woman-hating son of a bitch, and all you had really meant was don’t you love me enough to want to take care of me?
INLAND EMPIRE: No. She didn’t. And it was unfair to ask.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective, are you alright?” He’s stepped towards you.
VISUAL CALCULUS: You are in Kim’s apartment. The light is falling in heavy and gold through the window. It’s as bright as it gets there, late afternoon, that golden yellow spill that lights up the dust on the small exhaust hood even Kim Kitsuragi can’t manage to keep clean.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: This light reveals everything.
PERCEPTION: The worry on Kim’s face. The dark shadows under his eyes. The way his hand, down at his side, is clenching and unclenching slightly.
EMPATHY: He wants to reach out to you, to put a hand on your shoulder.
COMPOSURE: He won’t allow himself to do so.
YOU: You swallow. “Yeah. Sure. I’m fine.” You try a grin but are pretty sure the light reveals it as the Expression at its core.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: All your smiles are.
YOU: “I’m sorry I - I’ll stop thanking you. It’s just. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t deserve it.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And why not?”
YOU: You shrug, helplessly.
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. Then he turns around and digs in the Frittte bag and pulls out -
PERCEPTION: A can beef stroganoff. “I don’t know if it’s any good. Probably very salty. But we didn’t have anything for dinner. And you liked Goracy’s, didn’t you?”
YOU: You want to fall on your knees in worship. But you just take the can and pretend to read the instructions while your eyes water. The words refract, grow huge and blurry. “Thanks, Kim,” you say.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Your throat hurts.
COMPOSURE: You sound like you are speaking around that entire can of stroganoff.
KIM KITSURAGI: He half-smiles, meets your eyes, then looks away. Clears his throat. “You’re welcome.” He is the loveliest thing you have ever seen in this moment.
KIM’S APARTMENT: The light, it’s gold, it’s spilling from your lungs, you can’t breathe -
≠≠
The two of you have been crashing towards something ever since you’d come back from Martinaise.
INLAND EMPIRE: No. The two of you have been crashing towards something ever since that night in Martinaise, your very first night in the world, when you had smoked on the balcony together, and he’d said, smirking, “I like the green. Goes with the orange.”
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Crashing like a police vehicle into the sea.
KIM KITSURAGI: You spend almost every minute of every day together, except when you are sleeping, or using the bathroom, or splitting up to investigate different areas at work.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Which you don’t do often, ever since that time he found you licking a powdery substance off a victim’s dresser.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hey, you were trying to figure out if it was cocaine. And it was. The purest cocaine from Safre, the identification of which helped you get your perp, by the way.
YOU: You keep waiting for Kim to get sick of you. To leave, like they all do.
LOGIC: Jackass, he can’t leave. You’re in his house. You’ve trapped him.
HALF LIGHT: Way to go! Forced proximity will make him love you.
DRAMA: It has not failed you yet.
LOGIC: Um….
KIM KITSURAGI: Except he still seems to like you. Several months go by and he hasn’t kicked you out yet. He still laughs at your jokes. He still follows along on your stereo investigations.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: He still picks you up when you fall.
VOLITION: You try very hard not to fall. But…it’s hard. You’ve been fighting an entire host of addictions for more than twenty years.
HALF LIGHT: How are you not dead yet?
RHETORIC: Superior genetics.
LOGIC: Your genetics got you into this mess, asshole. Your mother was a drunk, did you know that?
YOU: You shut up about my mother.
DRAMA: Really, you’re going to defend someone you don’t even remember? And let’s not even talk about your father.
YOU: You don’t remember him either.
INLAND EMPIRE: No. It’s because he doesn’t exist. He’s a ghost, a figment, a hole in the world.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Sometimes, you drink. Once or twice you bring back a six pack of Potent Pilsner, and the two of you drink, very responsibly, sitting at the kitchen table, over kebabs.
YOU: You beam at Kim, proudly, and don’t even touch the other two beers in the fridge that night.
KIM KITSURAGI: He looks at you but does not smile back.
EMPATHY: That’s because he knows what will inevitably happen.
YOU: Which is…?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The next night you go out and you get so drunk that when you come back around 0100 hours you throw up in the shower.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is leaning in the doorframe, watching you, his arms crossed.
EMPATHY: He has not been asleep. He cannot sleep when you are not there.
INLAND EMPIRE: She used to be the same.
VOLITION: People worry about you, Harry. You make people worry.
YOU: That means they love me. The more I can make them worry, the more it proves they love me.
HALF LIGHT: No. The faster they get sick of you.
YOU: “Kim, I’m sorry,” you say, and then you throw up again.
KIM KITSURAGI: He winces. “Detective, if you clog that drain…”
RHETORIC: Somewhere along the way you become detective, lieutenant, and officer, at work, and Harrier, Harry, and detective at home.
PERCEPTION: Tonight’s a detective kind of night.
YOU: You mange to clean the shower that night, and again in the morning, waking up on the couch with your heart still pounding hard in your chest, so hard you think you’re going to black out as you bend over and clean the tub. And again. And again. Until it’s as pristine as Kim usually keeps it.
KIM KITSURAGI: “It’s five in the morning, Harrier. Why are you making a chemical bomb in my apartment?”
YOU: You turn to him, frozen.
ENDURANCE: It is hard to breathe. You should open a window.
INTERFACING: You get up, stumbling and nearly falling - your knees and legs have gone numb - and wrest open the window. You throw yourself against the screen and breathe in, deeply.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Feel that? That’s your vital functions beginning to work again. Feels good.
KIM KITSURAGI: There is a noise behind you. You turn. “Well?” he says, raising an eyebrow.
AUTHORITY: You quail.
1) “I don’t know if you know this - but I - got kind of sick last night.”
2) “I’m thinking of starting a side hustle. Harrier’s Kleening in a Hurry. I’m going to use this as my showroom and invite people back. What do you think?”
3) “I’m trying to make it right, Kim. Please don’t kick me out.”
YOU: “I’m thinking of starting a side hustle. Harrier’s Kleening in a Hurry. I’m going to use this as my showroom and invite people back. What do you think?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Absolutely not.”
1) “I don’t know if you know this - but I - got kind of sick last night.”
2) “I’m thinking of starting a side hustle. Harrier’s Kleening in a Hurry. I’m going to use this as my showroom and invite people back. What do you think?”
3) “I’m trying to make it right, Kim. Please don’t kick me out.”
YOU: “I don’t know if you know this - but I - got kind of sick last night.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “I know. I was there. So were you.”
YOU: “Oh.”
1) “I don’t know if you know this - but I - got kind of sick last night.”
2) “I’m thinking of starting a side hustle. Harrier’s Kleening in a Hurry. I’m going to use this as my showroom and invite people back. What do you think?”
3) “I’m trying to make it right, Kim. Please don’t kick me out.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. “I’m not going to kick you out, detective.”
YOU: Ouch. Back to detective.
KIM KITSURAGI: “But please, don’t you think it’s clean enough?”
YOU: He leans against you, his chest and stomach against your back. You hold your breath.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You stink like booze and death. Why is he so close to you?
KIM KITSURAGI: He looks over your shoulder. “It looks fine to me. Now, please, stop trying to kill me in my sleep.”
YOU: “Sorry, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “If you say sorry one more time…”
HALF LIGHT: He leaves the threat unspoken. It’s more powerful that way.
YOU: “So-”
AUTHORITY: The eyebrow raises.
YOU: You press your lips together and nod. “Mmm.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He rubs his eyes with his hand.
PERCEPTION: They’re watering, a little. The smell is really bad.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Since you’ve turned my apartment into an uninhabitable wasteland, I think we should go into the precinct early.” Something malevolent glitters in his eyes.
YOU: You groan. “They won’t even let us in this early.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “They will. But just in case, perhaps we can get some breakfast first.”
YOU: “Kim, I love you.”
KIM KITSURAGI: His ears turn the color of your best red satin shirt. “Khm. Yes, well. Come on and help me open some windows before we go.”
≠≠
KIM’S APARTMENT: Kim’s apartment is perfect.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Well, it’s a bit empty. It could use, like, three more posters of Guillaume le Million.
LOGIC: A dresser, for you, instead of your clothes folded on top of your gym bag in the living room. That would be nice. Another bed.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: No need for another bed when Kim has a perfectly good one that is way too big for just him.
INTERFACING: You’ve sat on it a few times. Sitting on his bed while Kim folded clothes and put them away. Talking about a case. Communism. The migration habits of birds.
PAIN THRESHOLD: But really, the pull-out couch is kind of harsh for a forty-four year old alcoholic.
YOU: Recovering alcoholic.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yeah….okay.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Kim’s apartment could only be improved with the addition of a sweet traffic light lamp.
YOU: You have been working on Kim for months to go back to Martinaise and get that lamp.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do you have seven hundred reál, detective?”
YOU: “No, because I’m paying double rent.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Last I was aware, you were paying one rent. Do you have another domicile somewhere else? Perhaps a pied-à-terre?”
LOGIC: His eyes sparkle at you. He knows you can afford no such thing.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pied-à-terres were extremely common among the wealthy of Grand Couron prior to the Revolution. Wealthy landowners had one - or several - to house their mistresses in. They were frequently small cottages with hidden rear gates in quiet and overgrown gardens, for discreet entrances and exits.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Something that benefited both the wealthy men and the mistresses they kept.
YOU: If you had one, you would deck it out with velvet and disco balls.
YOU: “But you have seven hundred reál. I think.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. But I am not buying that lamp.”
KIM’S APARTMENT: Disappointingly boring taste in lamps aside, Kim’s apartment has other things that you admire:
INTERFACING: A coffee table just a little too low for you to comfortably put your feet on.
HALF LIGHT: You don’t deserve to have a coffee table. You shot yours. A lot. Until it died.
YOU: Can coffee tables die?
INLAND EMPIRE: Yours did.
KIM’s APARTMENT: Kim also has a televisual set.
LOGIC: Why are you surprised? It’s only you who doesn’t.
HALF LIGHT: You know, because you -
YOU: I get it. I get it.
KIM KITSURAGI: The two of you go to the Video Revachol down the street sometimes to pick something out to watch.
YOU: You can’t go alone. The one time you do - Kim hands you the tape of the ’49 TipTop Tournee race - “again?” The clerk had asked him when you had picked it up, and his ears had flushed - and asks you, “can you return this for me? I’m afraid it’s due tonight and I really have to finish this report.”
AUTHORITY: Are you going to let this man run you around like his little errand-boy?
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Are you that desperate to get out of paperwork?
YOU: Yes. And also yes.
1) “Return it yourself. I’m not your bitch, Kim.”
2) “Shouldn’t we just - y’know - keep it? In the spirit of communism? I mean, who really owns a movie, anyway?”
3) “Hey Kim, can I borrow ten reál? You know, to get us a little treat?” [Rub the back of your neck.]
YOU: “Hey Kim, can I borrow ten reál? You know, to get us a little treat?” You rub the back of your neck.
KIM KITSURAGI: He sits back and studies you.
EMPATHY: He knows the importance of these little treats to your rattish, dopamine-deprived mind.
YOU: “I don’t get paid until Friday.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS: He knows that. He gets paid Friday too.
KIM KITSURAGI: He digs in his pocket for his wallet, fishes out ten reál, and flicks it to you.
REACTION SPEED: You catch it and grin.
KIM KITSURAGI: He can’t help but smile. “Chocolate-dipped cone. Please.”
YOU: You go, Frittte bag in hand, just in case you find any tare on the way.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim finds you four hours later passed out in a gutter behind the Frittte, an empty bottle of Commodore Red tucked into the crook of your arm and his chocolate-dipped cone, long since melted and crushed, trapped in your clenched left fist. The ’49 TipTop Tournee tape is nowhere to be found.
SHIVERS: At the bottom of the Esperance, a tape floats along, until it catches on an outcropping of rock and snags there, forever destined to be a home for extremely tiny fish….
YOU: You crack open an eye to see an orange beacon staring down at you. The sodium lights outside the alley make him look like an orange avenging angel. With the light behind him, you can’t see what expression is on his face.
EMPATHY: Pity…? Disgust…? Anger…? Pain...? Sorry, I got nothing.
KIM KITSURAGI: Somehow - in a span of time you don’t remember very much of - Kim gets you onto your feet, divests you of your bottle and melted ice cream -
VOLITION: Memories come back to you later. They haunt you. “Take it,” you mumble, shoving the melted ice cream at him, “take it, please, you wanted it, I got it for you, Kim!”
KIM KITSURAGI: - and gets you back to his apartment and into the tub.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Fully clothed, unfortunately. You had gone out in a mesh tank top and corduroy flares and you are covered in melted ice cream, wine, and gutter detritus.
KIM KITSURAGI: “I’m sorry about this.” Then he turns the shower head on full tilt and gets you right in the face.
YOU: When you recover, you feel a little better. You open your mouth, tongue out.
KIM KITSURAGI: Something crosses his face that you are too drunk to figure out. Then, eyebrow raised, he sprays hot water in your mouth. You swallow, then again.
YOU: “You’re sorry?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “A little.” He hands you the shower head and you point it uselessly at your chest, head bowed. The hot water feels good streaming through your mesh tank top, over your hairy and dirty flesh. He kneels beside the tub, hands dangling inside it.
PERCEPTION: Bare hands.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harrier, what happened?”
HALF LIGHT: Everyone leaves you at the Video Revachol. It is a spot where the Pale is concentrated, a mass of memories, of moments recorded and decaying every second. It is a hole in the world.
YOU: “Everyone leaves me at the Video Revachol.” You’re crying, hot tears dripping down your cheeks, and you turn the shower spray on your face to hide them.
REACTION SPEED: Not quick enough. Kim presses his lips together. Then he reaches out and puts a hand on your wet corduroy-clad knee.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did someone leave you…tonight?”
YOU: You hiccup. “No. But she will again. I see her all the time. She won’t leave me alone. Every night, it’s the Video Revachol. Every night, she’s leaving…”
HALF LIGHT: And some day it will be Kim, standing you before the Video Revachol, your pathetic bag of belongings clutched in your arms. “It’s time for you to go, officer,” he will say.
KIM KITSURAGI: He takes the shower head from your tight grip and, very gently, holds it high above you and runs it over your head. Your neck, your shoulders.
EMPATHY: He has some idea what you’re talking about.
DRAMA: You discourse in your slumber, sire.
YOU: Oh, fuck. What do I say?
HALF LIGHT: Mostly pathetic things like “please don’t leave me, I love you, I’ll be better, please, I’m sorry.”
INLAND EMPIRE: You know. All the old tunes.
YOU: “I’m sorry I lost your tape, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Technically, it was Video Revachol’s tape. Still…” he sighs.
YOU: “I’ll pay for it, Kim. Pay-day’s Friday.” You shoot him finger guns, then see the smeared and melted chocolate still stubbornly lingering on your hands.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Lick it off.
ENDURANCE: Do not lick it off. What the fuck is wrong with you.
VOLITION: Where do you want to start?
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. You will. Still…” a smile cracks his face. “Good thing the clerk will think I finally just kept it.”
YOU: “I’m sorry you couldn’t, y’know. Actually keep it.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s okay. It is not my favorite TipTop Tournee race. Only fifth-favorite, to be honest.”
YOU: You snort.
KIM KITSURAGI: He snorts. Then he goes over to the closet and digs out a fresh towel for you. “Here,” he says. “Maybe you should go sit up for awhile.”
KIM KITSURAGI: After that, Kim goes with you to the Video Revachol. You go once a week. Kim likes action movies, sci-fi flicks. “I’m afraid my taste is not very high-brow,” he says.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: You get in your turn:
1) A documentary on Guillaume le Million.
2) A romance about an entropic scientist and an aerostatic pilot, which makes you cry. “Are you crying?” Kim hisses at you and you shake your head wildly, grateful for the dark room.
3) A found footage horror film, set in The Pox, that keeps you up all night -
PERCEPTION: Not just you. You hear Kim wake up from a sound sleep going, “Huh!”
ESPRIT DE CORPS - and that you immediately decide is relevant to your current case. You try to drag Kim inside the abandoned hospital in The Pox one day.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Absolutely not.” Then he amends. “Only if we exhaust every other possibility.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Turns out you don’t.
DRAMA: Hugely disappointing.
YOU: You have new and exciting nightmares where you are searching an abandoned hospital for someone, except you’re not sure if it’s her, or Kim, and you don’t find either of them, but another, worse thing instead -
KIM KITSURAGI: “No more horror movies,” he decides after you shout the both of you awake.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: You watch the new Dick Mullen movie faithfully so you can rag on it at work to the others. The unrealistic collection of clues. The perfect fingerprint. The rare bird feather dropped from a woman’s headpiece that leads directly to the killer.
YOU: You won’t tell them about you and Kim on the couch, how he stretches halfway through it and slings an arm along the back of the couch -
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Over your shoulders!!!
YOU - and stays like that for the rest of the movie. You don’t really remember much about the rest of the movie, actually, because you’re trying too hard not to breathe or move, to do anything that will startle him.
KIM KITSURAGI: After, when it’s over, he turns and stretches, knee bumping into yours and staying there. His shirt pulls up over his stomach and you stare at the gap of skin he’s exposed. “That was awful,” he says.
YOU: “Terrible. Want to watch it again?” You reach for the remote, hopefully, leaning over his knees to get to it.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your gut presses into them.
PERCEPTION: He’s kind of bony there.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You kind of like it.
KIM KITSURAGI: “If I never see that movie again, it will be too soon. Also, it’s late.” He gets to his feet, going into the kitchen as your heart sinks through the floor. Then he reappears in the doorway, holding a pack of smokes at you in two fingers, wriggling them.
AUTHORITY: You get up and go, an obedient puppy.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: On the balcony, you squint one eye and point to an apartment across the street, lit up in yellow. A woman crosses and recrosses the window, gesturing to someone not in sight.
SHIVERS: A man reclines on a couch, lazily, watching a woman he is going to leave dispassionately, thinking once more -
YOU: “You know, if we were in a Dick Mullen movie right now, we’d see her get murdered. Blood spattering the windows - we’d get a glimpse of a man - or a woman! And race over there to catch him-”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Or her.”
YOU: “Or her, only in time to make out a very rare model of car just leaving-”
KIM KITSURAGI: “The Favre 660," he says, “or maybe the Deluge Sport. That would indicate Gottwald - they’re very hard to get out of the country, they’re actually illegal in Revachol-” he turns to you, his eyes sparkling. He’s leaning sideways on the railing, close to you, close enough you breathe in your smoke and his, too.
BALCONY: The sodium lights illuminate the balcony, with its narrow footprint, its concrete pad. Kim has an outdoor chair out there, a small table, an ashtray. You had Jamrock-shuffled an amazing velvet-covered carved-wood chair off the street one day and dragged it up the steps.
KIM KITSURAGI: He had wrinkled his nose at it. “It will get wet,” he’d said. “And then it’ll smell.”
YOU: “I won’t let it.” You don’t. You listen to the weather religiously and take it in when it’s due to rain.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Thank god we are not in a Dick Mullen movie,” he says now.
YOU: “Aw, c’mon, Kim, where’s your sense of fun?”
KIM KITSURAGI: He turns to put his cigarette out, getting very close to you in the process. He smiles, something suddenly sharp and dangerous. “It is placed elsewhere.” He steps to the door. Turns back around to look at you. “Coming?”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Not yet, Kitsuragi.
≠≠
You and Kim get into a tussle with a two suspects on the edge of the Burnt-Out Quarter.
YOU: “Still glad you transferred?” you ask Kim as you hoist his arm over your shoulder and help him back to the Kineema.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Still better than juveniles,” he says, his breath hot in your ear.
INTERFACING: You have to drive the Kineema back to the station, as Kim’s right ankle is injured. He sits bolt upright in the passenger seat, hands clenched on the door pocket and his own knee.
PAIN THRESHOLD: His breathing is harsh. He’d gotten hit in the ribs pretty good with a prybar.
HALF LIGHT: The same prybar you had then used to beat both suspects unconscious with.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Finally, you get back to the station, where Gottlieb diagnoses Kim with a pair of cracked ribs and a badly sprained ankle. He gets three days off work.
DRAMA: You, despite being scraped and bruised and bloody, get nothing. Gottlieb tells you you already had your time off.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Thank you,” he says, looking sour as he wrestles his boot back on loosely over his swelling foot.
KIM’S APARTMENT: You both pile into the faded green bathroom. It is not yet dark outside, although it is headed there, the sky darkening at the edges, the neons and street lights coming in. One of them glares in the window, reflecting in the mirror.
YOU: You are at the sink cleaning out your own scrapes and cuts: hands, face, chest.
LOGIC: Not the best day to wear your mesh tank top, I’m afraid.
SAVOIR FAIRE: A lying liar who lies.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is sitting on the edge of the tub, trying to take his boots off. “Ah!” he grunts.
INTERFACING: He can’t bend over far enough.
PAIN THRESHOLD: His ribs are a tight band around his midsection. If he starts to think too hard about it, he won’t be able to breathe.
PERCEPTION: Kim’s lips are moving very slightly.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: A volta…
YOU: You drop the bar of soap in the sink, shut the water off, and go over to him immediately. “Hey,” you say, kneeling down next to him. “Let me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He opens tired eyes and looks at you, then he nods.
AUTHORITY: He must really be feeling bad if he said yes.
YOU: You start running the water in the tub, keeping it on this side of cold. “For the swelling,” you say, a bit wildly, and then you start unlacing Kim’s boots. You start with his bad ankle first. He winces as you jostle it around, and you shift so you are - gently - pinning it between your thighs. You unlace and loosen.
YOU: “This is probably going to hurt, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Just get it over with, detective.”
YOU: You get it over with.
PERCEPTION: He is gripping the edge of the tub with one hand, knuckles turning white.
SAVOIR FAIRE: No gloves.
PERCEPTION: He is biting the knuckle of his forefinger of his other hand. If he makes a noise as you slide the boot off as carefully as you can, you don’t hear it over the water.
YOU: “There,” you say. “That was the hard one.” You turn away to set his boot down.
PERCEPTION: That’s when you hear a shaky exhale.
KIM KITSURAGI: “I can,” he says, trying to reach for the other boot. He grunts again.
YOU: “C’mon, Kim, just let me help you. Please?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Fine.”
YOU: You pull the other boot off. You look at his poor feet side by side: a nasty impression of his boot and sock on the injured foot, which is heavily bruised and swollen already; an impression of his sock on the other leg. You lean over him to shut the water off. “Feet in,” you say.
KIM KITSURAGI: He raises an eyebrow.
PERCEPTION: You can hear it, but you are not looking, testing the water temperature with your fingers. “Brr,” you say. “It’ll feel good. Come on. In.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. Loudly. And then, bracing himself on the edge of the green tub, pivots to put first one foot, then the other in.
YOU: “There we go!” You grin at him, brightly.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Let’s just get this indignity over with, detective,” he says, as he eyes you soaping your hands vigorously.
PAIN THRESHOLD: The soap stings your scraped knuckles.
YOU: You plunge your hands into the water and begin washing his feet.
INLAND EMPIRE: Isn’t there some sort of Dolorian thing about this?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Irene le Navigateur, upon the only successful return of her only returning explorers, had kneeled to wash their feet on the docks.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Although it is rumored this was only because she was sleeping with the captain and absolutely could not wait to get her hands on him.
RHETORIC: It’s a whole thing now in the Dolorian church, adopted as a show of humility, of love…
CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s a pretty heavy thing, Harry.
YOU: Shut up, it’s just - uh -
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Pretty sure Gottlieb didn’t say anything about washing Kim’s ankle as part of his healing process.
VOLITION: Not that you know, because you weren’t listening.
EMPATHY: No, you were busy watching Kim sit on the table, back hunched, clutching the edge of it, trying to breathe without showing that it hurt.
PERCEPTION: Now, his breath is ragged as you bend over and wash his good foot.
KIM KITSURAGI: His posture is stiffer than you’ve ever seen it.
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He’s carrying a lot of tension.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Kim’s boots, although cool, are not the most comfortable for running.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: He is a car cop, not a running cop, lieutenant double-yefreitor.
INTERFACING: You dig your thumb into the arch of his foot and press in, digging into the tight muscle.
PERCEPTION: There is a stifled small noise above you. When you look up, Kim is staring at you, his eyes wide, something dark and unreadable in them.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective. What are you doing?”
1) “Shhh. You’re carrying a lot of tension. Coach told me.”
2) “Kim, we have got to get you better shoes.”
3) “I’m apparently just really into feet.”
4) “It’s all part of the experience.”
5) “Foreplay. Is it working?”
YOU: “Shhh. You’re carrying a lot of tension. Coach told me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “…Coach? You know what, never mind.”
YOU: You move over to Kim’s bad foot. It is badly swollen and puffy, turning purple. It is also very hot to the touch. You’re as gentle as you can be, but he sucks in a breath when you try to get in between his toes.
YOU: “Sorry.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “It’s fine.” It sounds like he’s gritting his teeth.
YOU: You finish. Then, you have an idea.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: One of the best treatments for a sprain is the application of a cold compress - notably, ice - to reduce swelling and inflammation.
YOU: “This is going to be cold, Kim. Like…polar-bear-ice-chest cold.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He nods. His eyes are tightly closed and there is a sheen of sweat at his temples.
INTERFACING: You turn the faucet on as cold as it goes and cup your hands until they fill with frigid water.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Ow. That hurts, dumbness.
YOU: It’s for Kim, dumbass.
YOU: “Cold,” you whisper, and then pour the water in your cupped hands over Kim’s ankle. He sucks in a breath, then lets out a faint groan, pressing his hand to his side. “Oh, shit, sorry,” you say.
KIM KITSURAGI: “It’s fine. It feels good on the ankle.”
YOU: You keep going, until you can’t feel your fingers, and then you keep going a little longer. You go until Kim’s shaking a little, goosebumps on his legs -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: With his jacket open, you can tell his nipples are hard. You should kiss them. I mean, seriously, just lean over and…
YOU: You turn off the water, grab a towel, and very carefully dry his feet. You stand up and dry your hands and forearms off, too.
SAVOIR FAIRE: See? Perfect use for the mesh tank top.
YOU: You tuck your frozen hands into your armpits. Kim sits on the edge of the tub, pants rolled up and hems wet, hands braced on the tub. You and Kim look at each other in the bathroom light, yellow and strong, casting shadows.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Fuck,” he says.
YOU: You get up and hold an arm out, wordlessly. You help him up - he leans against you, wincing.
VISUAL CALCULUS: His bad ribs are on the same side as you.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: You move him carefully into the kitchen. “Hungry?” you say.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes,” he says. “But first, I would like some drouamine. It’s in my nightstand.”
EMPATHY: His eyes lower, briefly. He feels bad.
YOU: “No sweat, I already knew that. Be right back.” You go into Kim’s bedroom, flicking on the light. His bed is neatly made, a dark blue quilt folded over the end of the bed.
INTERFACING: You open the drawer to his nightstand and see several things laid out neatly.
1) A BOTTLE OF LUBRICANT
2) A CROSSWORD PUZZLE BOOK
3) AN EMPTY SPACE
4) A BOTTLE OF DROUAMINE
You look at the empty space.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: This is where the lieutenant’s gun rests every night.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: It is dangerous to keep your gun under your pillow. Between fifty and a hundred people are shot every year from such a placement in Insulinde alone.
HALF LIGHT: Don’t be a pussy, pussy.
4) A BOTTLE OF DROUAMINE
YOU: You hunt through the back of the drawer to find it. You pick it up and shake it. Half-full.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Open it! Take one! You can tell him he’s taken three! He probably won’t remember tomorrow!
VOLITION: He will, and don’t do that. You’ve known these were in here for months. Why start now?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Why did you ever stop?
YOU: You pocket the bottle of drouamine and keep looking.
1) A BOTTLE OF LUBRICANT
YOU: You pick it up. It is a little slippery on the outside.
LOGIC: Where it had dripped as he had squeezed it onto his shaking hand, and he hadn’t quite gotten it clean.
PERCEPTION: The wood underneath the bottle is darkened and glossy.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You know. From lube. The fucky-fucky sauce?
SAVOIR FAIRE: Please don’t ever call it that again.
YOU: Oh god, am I cramping his style living here? Am I stopping him from getting laid?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The last time the lieutenant had gotten laid was three years ago, at another man’s apartment, and they had exchanged neither name nor numbers. It was, on the whole, adequate.
YOU: So when does he…
INLAND EMPIRE: When you’ve toddled off to the Jamrock Public Library like a good boy, Kim fingers himself slowly, the angle not quite right, more desperate for all of that. His head thrown back, sweating, writhing on his own fingers, thinking of - thinking of -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Thinking of you, Harry-boy.
INLAND EMPIRE: This was just last week. You returned with a book on aerostatic ship design and one on seashell identification. He had taken his book from you, murmuring a thank you, those very same fingers brushing yours.
YOU: So wait. Kim thinks of me….?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The detective wants you very badly, Harry-boy. He will do unspeakable things to you if you give him the chance.
2) A CROSSWORD BOOK
The book is old and crumpled, as if it has been put into and taken out of this drawer for a few years. The cover is bent back nightly. There is a pen tucked into it. The pen says SPEEDFREAKS FM.
PERCEPTION: The SPEED has been worn off by Kim’s fingers, so it just reads FREAKS FM.
CROSSWORD BOOK: He works on me every night in an attempt to sleep.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: It was a gift from Alice at the 57th precinct two years ago.
INLAND EMPIRE: The lube is not a gift from Alice. Just in case you need that clarified.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’re half-hard now.
VOLITION: You can’t go out there like this.
YOU: You open up the crossword to his latest puzzle, which is half-filled in. Kim has gotten clues like FILIPPE III, CONCH, and PNEUMATIC. MALE ENTERTAINMENT STAR BEST KNOWN FOR ROLE IN GUILLAUME LE MILLION BIOPIC is, apparently, still a mystery to him.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Good. Things are going down around here. Keep at it, champ.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective? Are you alright in there?”
YOU: “Yeah! Just disco.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Are you Jamrock Shuffling through my belongings?”
YOU: “Yeah. Maybe. Hang on.”
YOU: As you come out, you say, “RENE DE HARDON!”
KIM KITSURAGI: “What?” He picks his head up off his hand where he is slumped over at the table.
YOU: “Rene de Hardon. The male entertainment star best known for his role in the Guillaume le Million’s biopic? Number 21 down.” You hand him the drouamine, then the crossword puzzle book, and grin at him.
KIM KITSURAGI: He stares at the crossword puzzle book as if trying to figure out where it came from.
PERCEPTION: Then, the tips of his ears flush red.
COMPOSURE: He’s thinking of the lube.
KIM KITSURAGI: He’s half-waiting for you to ask about it. He’ll make a little joke, just to watch you squirm, gain the upper hand…
YOU: You don’t do that. Instead, you rummage through the fridge and cobble together a dinner of leftovers.
LEFTOVERS: Some leftover French fries, half a kebab, some vegetables, with the addition of eggs, makes a suitable omelet.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Better with a lukewarm Potent Pilsner, of course.
VOLITION: Yes, but you don’t have one.
KIM’S APARTMENT: You eat in silence, watching Kim. He fills in RENE DE HARDON at your urging, then does two more crossword answers. After you clear the table and do the dishes, you turn around to see Kim falling asleep in his chair, chin in his hand.
YOU: You go over to him, kneeling at his feet. His one very swollen, very purple foot. “Kim. Hey, Kim.” You put your hands on his knees.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Huh?” He wakes, staring down at you, confused. He shifts, then grimaces in pain.
YOU: “Come on. You should elevate that foot.” You drag him out to the couch and set him up in the middle of it - a pile of pillows on the coffee table, his foot propped up on them. You look at the clock. It’s only 2100. Early, still.
You have a brilliant idea. “I’ll be back! Twenty minutes. If I’m not, send Jean after me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry, where are you-”
YOU: You go to the Frittte first, to get the ice cream cone - chocolate coated - then the Video Revachol, because the cone banging against your leg in your tare bag keeps you on track. It’s still a little melted when you get back, but you show it to Kim, beaming. “Look, Kim!” you say, waving the tape in front of his eyes. He frowns and tries to track it. “The ’37 TipTop Tournee Race! That’s your favorite, right? And-”
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: You fumble, then flourish, the chocolate cone into his hand.
KIM KITSURAGI: He stares at it. Then at you.
YOU: He stares at you so long that your grin starts to falter into the Expression.
RHETORIC: He doesn’t want your shitty do-overs. He wants you to leave so he can suffer in peace.
YOU: “…I can go back and get you something else if you want? They’re open for another twenty minutes…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You went to Video Revachol? Alone?”
EMPATHY: For me? He wants to say but doesn’t. It’s saying too much. His heart will be on his face, this tired and sore and slightly-stoned.
1) “I’d do anything for you, Kim.”
2) “It wasn’t a big deal. Don’t make it weird.”
3) “I’m totally fine with Video Revachol now. I realize it’s not Video Revachol’s fault that nobody can love me for long.”
4) “Well…yeah.”
YOU: “Well…yeah.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He looks at you, head back on the couch, lenses glittering in the light of the Frittte neon sign that comes in through the kitchen window into the living room. And then he smiles. He pats the seat beside him. “Have I ever told you about the ’37 TipTop Tournee?”
VOLITION: Yes. Five times, at least. Possibly more, while we were drunk or stoned or otherwise unable to remember.
YOU: “Refresh me.” You put the tape in and plop down beside him, careful not to jostle his ribs. He sighs, then breathes in carefully, and says, “In ’37, there had just been a drastic change to the sanctioning body…”
KIM’S APARTMENT: You wake up hours later, Kim’s head on your shoulder, your head on top of his. His hand is on your thigh, where it’s fallen, limp and open. He is sleeping, chest rising and falling softly. The televisual screen quivers on a black-and-white ants-march.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: The pale. The end of everything…
YOU: You close your eyes, and fall back asleep.
≠≠
You and Kim get into a big fight. It starts at work when he is upset with a stereo investigation you want to do.
YOU: It’s important. You know it.
KIM KITSURAGI: He insists it’s much more important to find a man who has killed two people and might kill more.
YOU: You tell him he’s too close-minded to understand.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, I am,” he says, with no small amount of satisfaction.
AUTHORITY: The problem comes when you nearly catch the suspect in an alley. It turns out your stereo investigation would’ve saved you a few kilometers of running *and* from vaulting a chain-link fence.
COMPOSURE: Of course, you rub it in his face. That gets his back up.
EMPATHY: The lieutenant is a sore loser. If he could, he would thrash you right now.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Promise?
KIM’S APARTMENT: The fight spills back to Kim’s apartment when you come in the door late - 2000 hours or so - and Kim trips over the pair of ceramic armored boots you’d left in front of the door after you’d changed out of them at the last minute earlier that morning.
SAVOIR FAIRE: And a good thing, too. You would not have been able to vault the chain link fence in those.
KIM KITSURAGI: “God damnit, Harry! I know it seems like it, but you are not the only man in the world!”
HALF LIGHT: She had said something very similar to you, too, before she left. Forever.
YOU: You each say a few more unkind things to each other, things that leave you standing off in the kitchen like a tribunal.
HALF LIGHT: Your hand is quivering, your heart pounding. You want to throw things.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is across from you, his chest heaving, teeth gritted.
EMPATHY: He is not far behind you, although he is a worse aim.
VOLITION: Do not let it get that far.
YOU: You wheel around on one snakeskin-green heel and leave.
HALF LIGHT: Keep going. Go all the way to the river. Drown yourself.
RHETORIC: Run and keep on running. You can make it to Fauborg by morning.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Go get drunk. Get absolutely fucking blitzed. Get so hammered you forget this fight, and Kim’s name, and your own name, too.
SUGGESTION: It’s easy. You’ve done it before.
VOLITION: You could just take a lap around the block and go back in and apologize.
EMPATHY: He’ll apologize too. He’s sitting at the kitchen table right now, head resting on one hand. His other one trembling down by his side despite his best attempts to hold it steady.
HALF LIGHT: Do not apologize. Do not show weakness.
YOU: You buy a bottle of Commodore Red in a Frittte, and then, because it’s cold, you walk all the way back to your old apartment on Perdition and Main. It skulks, lurking, at the bottom of the steps, a black and bottomless hole.
HALF LIGHT: If you go in there, you will not come back out again.
YOU: You have no other choice. You go in.
NECROTIC APARTMENT: It is still the same apartment. It has not changed in the three weeks since you have stopped by last - with Kim - to collect a few pieces of clothing and clean out the little food rotting in the cupboards.
PERCEPTION: It has, perhaps, gotten worse. It smells stale.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Like a mausoleum.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Mausoleums are used very infrequently in Central Jamrock, largely due to cost, space, and materials constraints. Mausoleums are more popular in places like Grand Couron, where they resemble houses nicer and sturdier than any you have every lived in.
YOU: You go into the bathroom and make the mistake of turning on the light. Of catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.
PERCEPTION: You look like shit. You are leaned on the sink, your bottle hanging loosely in your hand, hair falling in your face.
EMPATHY: You look like a man who has just ruined the only good thing going in his life.
RHETORIC: What a coincidence!
HALF LIGHT: You could turn on the water. Take a bath. You probably still have a toaster somewhere, or her old hairdryer…
VOLITION: Stop this. Call Kim. Walk back. Do something. Anything.
YOU: You stagger out of the bathroom and down the hall.
NECROTIC APARTMENT: You wander through the hallways of your apartment.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Haunting it like a ghost.
INLAND EMPIRE: You have walked these halls before, knocked off these walls, saying the same curses you are saying right now.
VOLITION: And you do not remember any of it. Do you want to live it again, soak it into these walls, these floors?
INLAND EMPIRE: It is too late. It is already here. There is no getting rid of it. You have poisoned this apartment, Harrier, like you have poisoned your body and your precinct and her and Jean and Kim and -
YOU: You press a hand to the wall, your chest heaving. “I’m sorry,” you say to the apartment. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”
NECROTIC APARTMENT: The apartment does not respond.
YOU: You tilt forward, slowly, until your forehead rests against the wall. You feel dizzy. The world swims around you.
HALF LIGHT: You do not deserve a response. How many people are desperate for homes, and you ruined this one for everyone. Your ghost will haunt future inhabitants until the bomb drops.
DRAMA: And then it will haunt the rubbled ruins.
YOU: You stumble into the living room and sit down heavily on the floor, your back against the couch. You lean your head back and stare at the ceiling, which swims in your vision. The room is faintly lit by the kitchen light which you had turned on to find your way.
ENDURANCE: You are tired. You have run so very far today and still have not succeeded in running away from yourself.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Also, you climbed a chain-link fence. Twice.
ENDURANCE: Also, you drank an entire bottle of Commodore Red, and you are out of practice, and all it is making you feel right now is sick, and dizzy, and tired.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Lies!! We could go all night! C’mon, kiddo, there’s got to be some speed squirreled around here somewhere. If not, Jean has it. Good old Jeanie….
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You feel your eyes fall closed…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Welcome back, Harry…
NECROTIC APARTMENT: You are woken sometime in the night by a hand on your shoulder. Your heart pounds in your chest: booze and surprise. You grunt, swinging an arm.
THE HAND ON YOUR SHOULDER: The figure attached to the hand on your shoulder neatly dodges it.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: The ghost of your past misdeeds come back to haunt you.
PERCEPTION: Open your eyes, detective. The kitchen light is till on, bleeding under your eyelids, making your sleep fitful and full of strange light spilling out from the Video Revachol.
INLAND EMPIRE: There had been someone leaving you, again, but it had not been her.
YOU: You open your eyes.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim kneels beside you, his hand on your shoulder. He moves it to the side of your face. “Detective,” he says. “Harrier.” His thumb just brushes your cheekbone before you meet his eyes.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It stills then, when you do, but he does not pull his hand away.
EMPATHY: Your warmth is reassuring. He does not often imagine things in his waking hours, but he had imagined many things as the hours passed and you had not returned.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: If you had not been here, he would have called Officer Vicquemare, who had handed Kim his number when you first were partnered together. “Kitsuragi. When he goes missing. Call me. I know his old haunts.” Then, as he’d walked away, he had muttered, “God help me.”
YOU: You come back to yourself, slowly. You are curled up on the floor next to the ruins of your old couch, the bottle of Commodore Red clutched in your grasp.
INLAND EMPIRE: Which you have also poisoned with unspeakable years of bodily fluids, intoxicating liquors, and violence.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry.”
YOU: You moan a little and turn a face up to him. With the kitchen light on behind him, it’s like looking straight into the sun.
YOU: “Kim. M.”
VOLITION: You have something to say to him. Something important. What is it? Think.
YOU: “M’sorry.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. “I’m sorry too.” His hand is absent-mindedly petting your shoulder.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It feels good. You are very sore from laying on this floor.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on. Let’s get you - back.”
INLAND EMPIRE: Home. He had almost said, let’s get you home. YOU: You sober up, a little, in the cold air, on the way back. You don’t speak on the ride back. Kim’s face is blank and stoic, looking out the windshield.
VISUAL CALCULUS: You try to read his body language from the movement of the steering levers, the set of his shoulders.
YOU: You have nothing. You slump in the passenger seat, hands between your knees. You alternate between looking at him and staring down at your green snakeskin shoes.
KIM’S APARTMENT: The apartment is spotless when you get back.
EMPATHY: Kim is a stress-cleaner.
YOU: You go into the bathroom and shower, quick and merciless, in the dark, because it’s easier that way. When you’re done, you brush your teeth in the light coming in the window.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: The yellow toothbrush - yours, now - practically glows in the light.
YOU: You had missed it, at your apartment.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Hello, my jagged-toothed friend!
YOU: Hello too, asshole.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: I see you think that may be an insult. It is not! I am actually very appreciative. So many teeth. So many crevices. You know, I very much appreciate a challenging job. Helps take my mind off things.
YOU: Yeah. I know what that’s like.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: I can tell you do, my friend.
YOU: So…you actually kind of like me? Even though I shove you into this maw every day?
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: But of course! My friend, you give me purpose. Do you know how many mornings I have seen the sunrise?
YOU: Uh….
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: One hundred fifty-seven, since your arrival on the scene. Prior to that, all I saw was the inside of the medicine cabinet. Not that Mr. Kitsuragi was not a considerate man, but that’s not living, my friend.
YOU: Uh. You’re welcome?
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Its glow intensifies inside your mouth. Your gums are burning.
ENDURANCE: That’s because you’ve been brushing too long.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Also because the toothpaste Kim buys borders on caustic. That man is sick.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You should investigate exactly how sick.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Listen, friend. A word of advice?
PERCEPTION: Its voice is less garbled now that it is out of your mouth.
YOU: Shoot.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Please, my friend, get your shit together. Because if you get kicked out, I go in the trash.
YOU: I’m trying. I swear I’m trying. It’s so fucking hard.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: You can do it! I know you can.
YOU: No offense, but you’re just a toothbrush.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: I have been inside your skull. I know you, Harrier Du Bois.
YOU: Wait, you know my name?
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Yes.
YOU: What’s yours?
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: Yellow toothbrush.
YOU: Oh. Yeah. Makes sense.
KIM KITSURAGI: He knocks on the door. “Harrier? Are you alright in there?”
YOU: “Fine! Fine. Just getting a little pep talk.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He mutters something. It may be that damned tie.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: I hope it helps, friend.
YOU: Thank you.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: You place the toothbrush carefully back in its glass, next to Kim’s.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: It glows brightly, a little trachea in a cup.
YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH: I’ll see you in the morning, champ!
YOU: Yes. You will. You go out into Kim’s apartment, strangely cheered, ready to crawl back into your pull-out couch, and try again tomorrow.
≠≠
Kim’s showers are efficient, usually five minutes or less, except -
VISUAL CALCULUS: Except sometimes they’re not.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You know what he’s doing in there!
INLAND EMPIRE: You do.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’re both men, are you not? Men in your early forties, but that’s nothing - and twice a week, Kim takes longer than usual in the shower.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Fifteen minutes. Usually in the mornings, before you drag yourself off your couch.
DRAMA: He likes the plausible deniability. You’re not up yet, he doesn’t have to feel guilty.
INLAND EMPIRE: Sometimes, though, he does it at night. One night - the dog days of summer, he can’t sleep, no one in the entire city is sleeping, if the irritability of the precinct, the circles under everyone’s eyes, and the crime rate is to be believed - he gets up and goes into the bathroom. You’re almost asleep, drifting, but wake to Kim’s bare feet padding through from bedroom to bathroom.
PERCEPTION: You hear the groan of pipes, the sound of water hitting the tub. The pull of the shower curtain.
RHETORIC: He’s already showered twice today.
YOU: What’s he doing in there?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He slumps under the spray. It is cold enough to feel good, but not cold enough to startle him fully awake.
INLAND EMPIRE: He exists in a sleep-deprived state of half-dream. Everything looks just a little unreal to him.
PERCEPTION: Well, everything looks like a dark blur to him at the moment, tinted a pale green from the small amount of light streaming in the window.
LOGIC: He’s kept the lights off. Easier that way.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He rubs his hands over his face, allows water to run over the back of his neck, head bowed.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And then he reaches down and touches himself.
YOU: You get up, slowly, and make your way over to the door, avoiding the particularly creaky bit of subfloor. You press your ear to the door.
VOLITION: Should you really be doing this, brother? What would Kim think if he knew?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: I don’t think he’d mind. I think he’d be excited, actually. Can’t you hear the way his breath quickens now, a little intake?
PERCEPTION: You can hear the changes in the way the water hits the floor.
VISUAL CALCULUS: You can use this to track his movements as he jerks himself, now faster, a little desperate.
YOU: What’s he thinking of?
EMPATHY: At first, nothing. He tries to treat this as purely business, a simple mechanical relief valve.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: A relief valve is a simple mechanical valve that opens at a set level to release pressure safely - whether of liquid or gas - to prevent a more explosive off-setting.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: God, shut the fuck up, nerd. Guys, what is he thinking of now?
EMPATHY: He’s trying to think of a past encounter: his hands on a man’s shoulders, pushing him forward, pushing into him, the tight hot heat of him -
RHETORIC: Trying?
EMPATHY: But the man is you; you are in his bed, “God, Kim,” you’re groaning, or maybe you’re just making little breathless whimpers, little whines as he fucks you so good, begging for it -
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Yes, Lieutenant Kitsuragi thinks, his pace picking up, a little gasp escaping himself for only you and he to hear. Yes, he would be sweet, desperate.
RHETORIC: The detective has thought about this before.
KIM KITSURAGI: Or you are coming into the shower, maybe, the lights still out, the sound of the shower curtain as you pull it back. “Kim,” you might say hoarsely, “Kim, I can’t sleep,” and he will reach out and pull you in here and press you against the wall, flattening against you, your already-hard cock pressing into his belly. “God, Kim,” you would moan, “I want you so bad, please, let me, can I-” so ready to get to your knees, your eyes shining in the dark up at him.
PERCEPTION: A low exhale of breath, almost a grunt, a little shaky and sustained on the end.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yesssssss.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your cock is pressing into the door, hard. It kind of hurts.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yessssssssssssss.
PERCEPTION: The water streams to the floor, uninterrupted and unchanging.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Kim stands there momentarily, head bowed, letting the water stream over him.
INTERFACING: Washing it all away.
PERCEPTION: The sound of the faucet squeaking as Kim turns it off.
REACTION SPEED: You hurry, as quietly as you can, back over to the couch. You get in just in time, throw the sheet over your legs -
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: No, higher, you’re hard as a rock -
YOU: You pull the sheet over your hips, draped loosely over your gut, and curl up a little.
KIM’S APARTMENT: The door swings open. You can just barely make out Kim, silhouetted in the doorway, wet hair.
PERCEPTION: There is still water beaded on his shoulders, the small of his back.
VISUAL CALCULUS: From the kitchen window, the red light of the Frittte sign bleeds in, washing red over his legs, shining on his wet hair.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Another day, another halo. You’ve really got it bad for this one, don’t you?
KIM KITSURAGI: There’s a pause, as if he’s deciding something.
EMPATHY: For once, he’s unsure.
YOU: You shuffle in the blankets a little, and snort, as if you’re just waking up.
DRAMA: He’s convinced, sire!
KIM KITSURAGI: He pads towards you, kneels down beside the couch. He is very close to you. “Harrier,” he says, voice low. “Can you sleep?”
YOU: You groan and roll over, slightly, onto your back.
COMPOSURE: Bad idea!!! You’re hard as a rock!! You’re pitching a tent!!
YOU: You groan and roll back towards him.
VISUAL CALCULUS: He doesn’t seem to have noticed.
YOU: “Did you just take a shower, Kim?”
KIM KITSURAGI: The tips of his ears flush. You can hear it even in the dark. “Khm. Yes.”
YOU: “Good idea,” you say, stretching. “I think I will too…”
REACTION SPEED: You manage to make it into the bathroom without him noticing your still unrepentant hard-on.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You get right to it, hand on your cock, one braced on the shower wall, as the water streams over you, you think of Kim - on your knees for him, mouth open - Kim buried deep inside you, making you whine -
ENDURANCE: That might be a new record, champ.
VOLITION: Not that we remember any of the old ones.
YOU: When you go back out, Kim is in his bedroom, but based on his breathing, he is not sleeping.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Lieutenant Kitsuragi lays on his back, eyes gleaming, trying not to think about you jerking off in there.
VOLITION: And failing.
KIM’S APARTMENT: It is a very, very long night.
YOU: After that, you get a sense of when Kim is in the shower, touching himself.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He doesn’t lock the door, you know.
SUGGESTION: You could just…go in there. Talk to him.
DRAMA: See what happens.
YOU: So you do. You go in, once, when you know he’s touching himself. It’s been a long, awful day; you’re in the middle of three cases and a week of patrol work that gets you out of the house at 0500 and back at 2000 or later, and you’re getting nowhere, and a little snappy. There are so many stakeouts where you are close in the Kineema, acutely aware of each other’s proximity, feeling the distance between you crackling.
KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t even want to do it, but he has to, or he knows he won’t be able to sleep, his whole body a rigid line of tension. He hasn’t had time to work any of it off, so he is in the shower with a tight grip, hips stuttering into his hand, thinking of shoving you down in the backseat of the Kineema, feeding you his cock -
SUGGESTION: Which is when you open the door and stick your head in. You can hear the sound of skin on skin, can hear his panting breath. “Hey, Kim, I was thinking-”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Gah!” He grunts out.
YOU: “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Then you shouldn’t have come in. Are you injured?”
YOU: “No-?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did the suspect break into our apartment?”
SUGGESTION: Our apartment?
YOU: “No-?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Maybe the world is ending?” This last is said through gritted teeth.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: His cock tightly gripped in his hand.
YOU: “Not for another - not for awhile, anyway.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Then please, get out.”
KIM’S APARTMENT: He starts locking the bathroom door after that.
SUGGESTION: He knows you can’t resist a challenge. And he knows you still have the Carsson T. Heavy Duty prybar, which this flimsy hollow-core door cannot hope to stand up to.
VOLITION: Maybe he wants his privacy…?
YOU: But if he thinks of me when he’s playing the Jamrock-paper-scissors, wouldn’t the real me be even better…?
SAVOIR FAIRE: Nice. Classy.
YOU: You kind of mentally shrug.
INTERFACING. Then you rattle the doorknob.
YOU: “Kim, let me in.”
KIM KITSURAGI: A low noise of frustration. “Why?”
1) “I have to piss!”
2) “I want to have fuck with you.”
3) “Let me get your back.”
4) “Is there room for two in there?”
5) “Are you jerking off in there?”
6) “There’s a monster out here, and I’m scared.”
7) “Uh….the suspect broke into our apartment? And what did you mean, by the way, our apartment? I think you should let me in and we could talk about it.”
YOU: “I have to piss!”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. “Go piss in the kitchen sink.” His voice is low.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He’s very, very close. If you keep this up, you’re going to give him a Pavlovian reaction to the sound of your voice.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pavlov was a scientist who…
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Shut up, nerd. Sounds great.
ENDURANCE: Standing there with his cock in his hand, gripped tight.
YOU: “I’m not pissing in the kitchen sink, Kim. That’s gross.”
VOLITION: You’re killing the mood, you know.
YOU: Yeah, but I want to make this clear.
KIM KITSURAGI: He mutters something like, “now he has standards.”
YOU: “Hey! I have great standards.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry. Go. Away.”
1) “I have to piss!”
2) “I want to have fuck with you.”
3) “Let me get your back.”
4) “Is there room for two in there?”
5) “Are you jerking off in there?”
6) “There’s a monster out here, and I’m scared.”
7) “Uh….the suspect broke into our apartment? And what did you mean, by the way, our apartment? I think you should let me in and we could talk about it.”
YOU: “Are you jerking off in there?”
KIM KITSURAGI: A noise of extreme frustration. “Yes. I was trying to, before you ruined it with all your talk of pissing! Now go away.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You know, if you can get that door open and slide into the shower, he wouldn’t stop you.
AUTHORITY: He would probably get you on your knees and shut your mouth up. Is that what you want?
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Water streaming down your face, blinding you, your hair dripping, his hands buried in your wet hair -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yes.
RHETORIC: It would be nice not to have to talk, all the time.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Why don’t you shut the fuck up, then.
INTERFACING: I can totally get that door open.
VOLITION: Leave the man alone.
YOU: You go away. You go outside and smoke, strangely cheerful. Hey, at least you know something more about what he is or isn’t into. And you cheer further the more time stretches out before he joins you, pink in the ears, clean-smelling, with a certain tightness to his shoulders and looseness to his spine that leaves your heart pounding.
KIM KITSURAGI: He wants to say something, but he has no words. If you were someone else - not his colleague, not his partner, not Harry - he would grab you by the wrist, push you up against the railing. Shove a thigh between yours, pry your mouth open with his tongue. Kiss you until you are desperately rutting up against him, until you say please - please - eyes wild, no idea exactly what you’re asking for, just asking for all of it.
EMPATHY: If you were someone else, he would tear you apart.
YOU: Your mouth is suddenly dry. You suck on your cigarette, which does not help matters. “Don’t worry Kim, it’s perfectly natural. I do it a few times a week.” And you do. Certainly more now that the two of you are in some sort of gay-jerk-off-chicken game. Sometimes you swear you can still smell his come in the shower when the water starts up and you close your eyes, hand already playing with yourself -
KIM KITSURAGI: “Congratulations, detective.” But his eyes flick over you when you pretend to turn away, running up and down you, lingering in a few spots: your biceps, your chest, your hips.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You preen a little, leaning forward on the balcony.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He checks out your ass, too. How easy it would be to step behind you, to press against you and lean forward. Plucking the cigarette from your hand - draped over your back - smoking it, handing it back to you - or maybe putting it out, then taking your arm. “Inside,” he might say, “now.”
ENDURANCE: He’s not sure he can go again. Besides, he would prefer to wait until things are at a fever pitch, desperate, your wide-eyed enthusiasm, baring your neck -
SHIVERS: Down in the city, a man goes to his knees in an alley behind a dumpster. Two lovers are fucking in the Central Jamrock Cemetery. “Isn’t this exciting?” She breathes out, and pushes his head down. In countless rooms and park benches and bushes there is a gasp, a groan…
INLAND EMPIRE: Not today. But soon.
≠≠
It is a week after this that you receive your very own concussion, courtesy of a virulent domestic and a surprisingly sharp tea-kettle.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: This is not your first concussion, champ.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: There is a direct correlation between number of concussions and negative impact. For instance, the more concussions one receives…
YOU: But I don’t remember getting any concussions.
LOGIC: Well you wouldn’t, would you?
YOU: I dunno, I think I’d remember feeling this bad.
HALF LIGHT: You have felt much, much worse a number of times, and you don’t remember any of those.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You feel terrible. Your head feels like it’s been trapped in a vice which is slowly closing in, pounding with every beat of your heart.
ENDURANCE: Which won’t beat much longer now. You’re done for, Harry. If the headache doesn’t get you, the nausea will.
HALF LIGHT: What’s the effect of a concussion on a 2-mm hole in one’s head?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: No one’s ever studied that before.
DRAMA: Congrats, Harry! They’ll name it after you, if you’re lucky.
YOU: Name what after me?
SUGGESTION: Don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough. Or, well, you won’t, but others will…
YOU: Oh my god, what if it’s knocked the hole loose and it’s roaming around my head? What if I forget how to use my legs next? What if I forget how to talk? What if I forget Kim?
KIM KITSURAGI: “Did you say something, detective?”
YOU: You’re in the Kineema, slumped over, holding your heavy melon-head with both hands. Lights slice past, Frittte neons and shop windows, and lit billboards, bar signs that screech and shimmy at you as you blast past.
1) “I don’t want to forget you, Kim.”
2) “Kim, how will I know when I’m dying?”
3) “I don’t want to forget how to use my legs.”
4) “I don’t want to forget how to walk.”
YOU: “I don’t want to forget you, Kim.” It comes out as a whisper nearly against your palms.
KIM KITSURAGI: He is looking at you in concern. He strips off a glove with his teeth -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yow. Yowch. Champ, what have you been doing to us?
KIM KITSURAGI: He puts hand to your forehead, then your cheek. “Lieutenant, are you feeling alright? Why are you worried you’re going to forget me?”
PAIN THRESHOLD: A sweep of nausea as he pulls into the parking lot of his apartment.
YOU: “What if the concussion knocked the hole loose? What if I lose myself again?”
KIM KITSURAGI: He studies you, then slides his hand down to your shoulder, keeps it there. You can feel dried blood tacky on the side of your neck, matted in your hair, stiffening your collar. “Fortunately, detective, I do not have the same hole. I should be able to recall. And if not…” He taps the notebook in his jacket pocket and smiles very slightly.
INLAND EMPIRE: That notebook helps him retain hold of the world, sometimes. He does not doubt it could help you as well in times of need.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on,” he says, softly. “Let’s go up. Get you cleaned up.”
KIM’S APARTMENT: The lights hurt your eyes, even as the low level he leaves them set at. You sway lightly in the kitchen, your hand on the counter, head hanging down.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You are sticky and sore and throbbing.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And not in the fun way.
KIM KITSURAGI: “You should really wash some of that off,” he says. He reaches out and puts a hand on your shoulder again. The weight is heavy and comforting.
INTERFACING: With his thumbnail, he scratches at something on your neck.
HALF LIGHT: Dried blood trickled down from your scalp, flaking off your skin.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It sends a shiver through you.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on,” he says. He wraps his hand around your wrist and tugs you towards the bathroom.
YOU: You groan when he turns the overhead light on.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Sorry.” He turns it off, flicks the light over the sink on. It casts a shadowy glow across the two of you.
YOU: You stare at the faucet, trying to will your arms to reach out.
KIM KITSURAGI: He reaches past you, turns the water on, checks it with his gloveless fingers. “It would be easier if you got in the tub.”
DRAMA: Oh, yes. You’re a bath man, usually.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A bottle of Commodore Red, a tin of pyrholidon…
HALF LIGHT: Baths are dangerous.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: You’ve been fished out of the bath unconscious more than once.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Two hundred people and three pets per year drown in bathtubs across Revachol. The number is disproportionately high in Grand Couron, among the bathtub-and-sleeping-pill-indolent-housewife-crowd, and also in Central Jamrock, where a favorite way to go is a radio to the bathtub.
SAVOIR FAIRE: You pull off your blood-soaked disco-ass blazer. Your satin shirt. You’re starting on your pants when….
SUGGESTION: Kim’s going to see you naked.
LOGIC: Kim’s already seen you naked.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: When?!
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Where were we??
LOGIC: When we were fucking shot, you asshole. Somebody mended your ragged skin, sewed all your loose and sagging parts back together.
YOU: You recognize his stitch-work: neat and small, designed to be unobtrusive, to hold things together tightly.
KIM’S APARTMENT: Sometimes at night you’ll sit in the living room sharing the couch, Kim under the lamp, head bent over a piece of clothing he’s mending, held up close to his face.
VISUAL CALCULUS: He has trouble threading the needle.
INTERFACING: You could do it for him! Impress him!
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Brother, your hands shake like an earthquake. You could not do it.
EMPATHY: Don’t draw attention to his bad eyesight.
KIM KITSURAGI: He mends his jacket, his pants, your shirts, your jacket. Tucks in your fraying cuffs, hems a pair of too-long wine-red corduroy slacks you Jamrock shuffle out of a bin behind an old shopping center.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry,” he says. He looks concerned.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Probably because of your head wound. Also, ow.
YOU: “Oh. Yeah. Sorry, Kim.” You undo your pants and step out of them.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: FUCK. YEAH.
YOU: You hook your thumbs into your briefs -
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm. You can leave those on, detective. I’ll only be washing your scalp.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: What?? No.
SUGGESTION: Wait, hell yes. Kim is washing your hair? Keep up, chump.
YOU: Has anyone ever washed my hair before?
INLAND EMPIRE: Presumably your mother. Presumably you were young once.
DRAMA: In the great Gottwaldian opera Sanson and Delia, Sanson is an extremely strong man whose life-force and resistance to the Pale resides in his hair. After a series of over-the-top arias and romantic assays, Delia washes Samson’s hair. He falls asleep during the process, at which point she shears it off, holding fistfuls up to the audience and singing her victory. When she is finished, Sanson awakes to find himself shorn and, with one final reprimand, dissolves into the Pale.
HALF LIGHT: That’s what’s going to happen to you.
VOLITION: No. Not Kim.
YOU: You step into the bath - it’s hot on your feet and ankles - Kim gripping your forearm and hand so you don’t fall. You fold into Kim’s tub, back settling against the cool tub.
KIM KITSURAGI: He takes off his jacket, laying it on the bathroom counter. He leans over the edge of the tub. “A little further down for me, detective, if you can.”
YOU: You scoot accordingly, arms draped loosely around your knees.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim reaches over to you get the shower head. “Close your eyes,” he says.
PERCEPTION: The world narrows down to this: the sound of the shower head turning on, its gentle hot pressure on your aching forehead.
YOU: You moan.
KIM KITSURAGI: A low sound like a laugh. “Good?”
YOU: You nod, then groan again.
KIM KITSURAGI: Still directing the warm water on your scalp, Kim drags his fingers lightly through your hair, over your scalp, feeling for -
YOU: Ow.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes,” he says. “This is probably going to sting.” You can feel the warmth as he leans over you. He’s blotting out the sun, like an eclipse.
YOU: You feel him reaching to get the shampoo, his chest pressing into your shoulder.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Just try to relax,” he says.
YOU: You focus on Kim’s fingers in your hair, the warm light water pressure. He cards, he rubs his fingertips in circles on your scalp. He is very gentle and methodical. You say, “Kim, do you think I’m going to remember this?”
KIM KITSURAGI: His fingers pause. “I hope so. Do you want to remember this, detective?”
YOU: You swallow, hard. “Yes.” You start to shuffle lower so you can rest your head on the edge of the tub.
PERCEPTION: You crack an eye open to check on Kim as you do.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Go on, Harrier,” he says. “Get comfortable.” He is looking at you in the strange shadowy light, something very soft and open on his face that he does not hide in time.
YOU: You let your head drop back against the edge of the tub.
KIM KITSURAGI: He gets back to work - working over your scalp again. His fingertips on your neck, cleaning off the blood. Again and again and again, slow and methodical and soothing. You’re drifting off when you feel his hands on your face, fingertips rubbing small circles on your temples. His thumbs brushing lightly under your eyes…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Well, well, well. What have we gotten ourselves into here, Harrier?
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Yes… a return to the ether…soft and warm and floating. No one expects anything of you…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: No one expects anything of you anyway. They all know better by now.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Except him…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: He’ll learn in time. What are you doing, Harry?
YOU: I’m trying not to die.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: You’ve been dying since the day you were born.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: You are a wound in the world, weeping and infected. The world is trying to excise you. Can you blame it?
YOU: No…
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Well…one day it’ll finally succeed. Might as well just give up now. What do you have going for you, really? An ex-something who feels sick every time she smells the brewery smell of a drunk pass her on the street? A job that left you bleeding and dying in Martinaise?
YOU: Kim…
A VOICE: “Shhh…I’m here.” A hand on your head, brushing back your hair. The hand is wet and hot. A thumb on your cheek, breath close to your lips. “Are you awake?”
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Not yet. We have something for you, Harry.
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Call it our little gift…
YOU: You are in the Whirling-in-Rags, flat on your back on one of the dining tables. You are bleeding from two places, a steady stream, and Kim is leaning over you. This is a memory, you realize, or half of one. Something’s wrong, though; instead of healing you, stopping the bleeding, Kim is cutting your hair. “I have to get to it, I have to get it out,” he’s saying, and the pain is everywhere, your shoulder, your leg, your chest, your head, and he says, brushing his fingertips over your face, “shh, just let me, I’m almost done, just relax,” he’s saying, and he’s digging at your head now, and you’re trying to fight him off, because if he gets to it, gets to the hole, lets it loose, he’ll dissolve too, you and him and the Whirling-in-Rags and all of Revachol, you’ll consume them….
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry! Harry!”
YOU: You wake, suddenly. You’re in warm bath water, cooling rapidly. Your exposed shoulders and chest are cold.
VISUAL CALCULUS: You’ve been thrashing. There is water all over the bathroom floor. Kim is soaked.
YOU: “Oh, god. Kim, I was dreaming. I didn’t - did I hurt you?”
HALF LIGHT: Not yet. You hurt everyone you love eventually.
KIM KITSURAGI: “You didn’t hurt me, Harry. All you did was splash me. Will you be alright for a minute? I’m going to get you some clothes.”
YOU: You grunt at him.
RHETORIC: He takes that as assent.
PERCEPTION: You hear him leave the room, hear him rummaging through your things in the living room.
KIM KITSURAGI: He comes back in with a fresh pair of briefs and a faded RCM t-shirt, puts them on the toilet lid, and hands you a towel.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You stumble getting up.
PAIN THRESHOLD: You’re dizzy.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You almost fall.
KIM KITSURAGI: He grabs you, hands hot and wet on your arms, and catches you with his chest, your head bowed to his neck. He staggers a little with the awkward angle. “Harry, help me out here.” His voice is stern.
EMPATHY: He’s worried.
VOLITION: Pull yourself together.
YOU: You do, straightening yourself up, lifting your pounding head, taking the towel. You dry yourself off and strip off your sodden briefs -
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim leans against the sink, arms crossed, looking over your head -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: His gaze flicks down briefly when you twist to get your new undies.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Making sure his comrade doesn’t fall in the bath.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Checking you out.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on,” he says when you’re dressed, and leads you to -
LOGIC: His bedroom??
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: His bedroom.
EMPATHY: His bedroom.
PERCEPTION: The light glowing softly. Kim’s notebook on the nightstand, a glass of water.
1) “But….this is your bedroom, Kim.”
2) “Look, Kim, I’m flattered, but I’m really not gay.”
3) “Look, Kim, I really want to, but I feel like shit right now. Is it okay if I just…lay there?”
YOU: “But…this is your bedroom, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: A smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. “My next move was going to be a series of questions to determine if your mental facilities were affected by the blow, but it’s safe to say they were not any different than usual.”
DRAMA: Meaning: you’re still as dumb as ever, sire.
YOU: You sit down on the bed, heavily.
KIM’S BED: I’m comfortable. I smell like him. Cuddle up in these blankets. Sometimes, Kim wraps himself around a spare pillow - yes, that one right there…
YOU: You grab the pillow and warp yourself around it, curling up. You rest your aching head on it.
KIM KITSURAGI: He makes a noise. When you look at him, his eyes are wide and dark, mouth a little parted.
EMPATHY: He likes the look of you in his bed.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He’s thought about it before.
YOU: “Oh, sorry. Do you want this?” You start to roll away, offering the pillow clutched in your arms.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Ah. No. Thank you. I will sleep on the couch. But first…” He gets you some drouamine. You swallow it with the glass of water on the nightstand -
GLASS OF WATER: He drank out of me last night. His lips pressed where your lips are pressed right now. You should kiss him right now. Sit up and take him in your arms. You’re warm; he’s warm, you can fall back on the bed together. It will be soft and tender.
YOU: “Maybe tomorrow…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “What is tomorrow, Harry?” He leans close.
YOU: “I’m gonna do it…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do what?”
YOU: …..
≠≠
Alright, so it’s a month later instead of the next day, because you still feel like crap the next day. Besides, the next month is full of promise. Yours and Kim’s shoulders knocking together and then pressing when Jean calls you over to look at a bunch of corpse photos, and you both lean over his desk, Kim’s arm pressed into yours the whole way. Your hands almost touching on the desk. After a minute you shift your weight, spread your legs, and your foot knocks into his.
KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t move. In fact, you swear the pressure against the side of your foot increases.
YOU: Or when you get the world’s best fried potato-filled pastry from some kiosk in Eminent Domain and you moan so loud Kim turns to look at you. “You have to try this, Kim,” you say around a wad of potato-and-dough, and tear a piece off and plop it in his mouth before he can resist.
KIM KITSURAGI: Or in the Kineema, when he’s reversing, and he puts his hand behind your headrest and it brushes your shoulder when it drops.
YOU: Or when you listen to a radio broadcast of the TipTop Tournee and fall asleep on the couch together and you wake up with your head in his lap.
KIM KITSURAGI: Or when you’re in the precinct garage working on the Kineema one autumn evening. You work all day: changing the oil, putting fresh brake rotors on, something to do with the swing arms. Kim spends a lot of time under the Kineema on his back, his hands above his head, fiddling with something.
PERCEPTION: Occasionally a light muffled curse floats your way.
INTERFACING: You stand there, hands by your sides, waiting to be useful.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And looking at the way his shirt rides up.
PERCEPTION: You can see his bare hip peeking between pants and shirt.
HALF LIGHT: You want to sink your teeth into it.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You want to slide your hand down into his pants.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: You imagine the skin there is soft over his hard hipbone.
YOU: You venture out around 1300 for lunch - a steaming pile of takeout with deliciously sauced chicken, crisp water chestnuts, and more grease than currently coats the underside of the Kineema -
KINEEMA: And then it’s back to work.
KIM KITSURAGI: He puts the car up on the lift. “One of the advantages of the 41st precinct,” he confesses to you, as the lift clunk-clunks past its hydraulic stops.
YOU: “The only reason you transferred?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Not the only reason.” A sly smile towards you. He goes over to the toolbox, gets out a large hammer.
YOU: “Kim, I’m no mechanic, but I don’t think you’re supposed to use a hammer on these things.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You’d be surprised." He indicates a stubborn bolt that has seized up. “Sometimes the only way to get something loose is to jar it.”
YOU: You watch him swing the hammer, grunting a little with each impact.
PERCEPTION: His feet are braced, twisting fluidly from his waist. Muscles standing out on his arms, shoulders swinging.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Wow.
SUGESTION: Yeah, huh?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Good form.
KIM KITSURAGI: But he’s not quite getting it. He lowers the hammer and huffs in frustration.
PERCEPTION: He’s sweating. It gleams on his collarbone, his forehead. He swipes at his forehead with his forearm, smears grease and grit across it.
KIM KITSURAGI: His eyes settle on you, running over you.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Sizing you up.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Eyeing up your exposed biceps in your cutoff SAD FM shirt.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The breadth of your chest.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come here.”
AUTHORITY: You go there.
YOU: You stand together under the Kineema, looking at its exposed and gleaming underbelly.
KINEEMA: He takes very, very good care of me, because I am his.
VOLITION: You should try to become his.
INLAND EMPIRE: You already are.
KIM KITSURAGI: He steps up behind you, very close. The Kineema lowers down on you, Kim behind you.
HALF LIGHT: You are trapped. Run.
KIM KITSURAGI: He points to the bolt over your head, his arm resting on your shoulder. He speaks very close in your ear. “Can you hit precisely that and not anything else surrounding it?”
PERCEPTION: You can smell him: sweat and grease.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You could take him to the floor right now and -
KIM KITSURAGI: His finger shifts and points to the piece of metal the bolt holds in place. “If you hit that instead, I will be very upset with you.”
EMPATHY: He will be, too.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: No one but him has worked on this Kineema since he has gotten it.
RHETORIC: This opportunity is not offered lightly.
YOU: You swallow and nod. His fingers brush yours, then he puts the hammer in your hand. “Remember,” he says, and leans against you, front pressed to your back -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yes!! Yes!! More!!!!
KIM KITSURAGI: He taps the correct bolt. “There.” Then he steps back.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Out of swinging range. You test it once, twice, aiming your swing and very gently tapping the hammer head to the bolt head -
YOU: You nod in satisfaction -
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: You swing, smooth and hard, neatly connecting with the bolt head.
KINEEMA: BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You swing back for another one -
KIM KITSURAGI: He puts his hand on your upper arm, fingers curling around it.
AUTHORITY: Stopping you in your tracks.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You swear he squeezes a little.
KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s good,” he says.
AUTHORITY: There is approval in his voice.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You preen.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You step back and lower the hammer.
KIM KITSURAGI: He steps in to loosen the bolt with his socket wrench. “Very good, detective,” he says over his bare shoulder to you, hair falling just short of his eyes. “We’ll make a mechanic out of you yet.”
KIM’S APARTMENT: When you get back to the apartment, it is easing into evening, the sun gold on the dark clouds hovering at the edges of the horizon.
SHIVERS: Above, the coalition airships: always there.
KIM KITSURAGI: He is satisfied, referring to his Kineema notebook, checking a few things off. He hums slightly. “I think that’s a good day’s work,” he says.
YOU: You’re fucking tired. You didn’t know working on motor carriages could be this much work. Your knees hurt, your hips hurt, your arms and shoulders hurt.
KIM KITSURAGI: “I’m going to get in the shower.” A lingering pause, a gaze.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Which means…?
SUGGESTION: Sorry. We’ve got nothing.
LOGIC: It would have been more efficient for you to both shower at the precinct in the locker room. That way you could’ve both done it at once.
SUGGESTION: Save water, shower together!
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The lieutenant very rarely showers in the precinct showers.
RHETORIC: Why?
EMPATHY: He’s nearly blind without his glasses. When he is vulnerable, he prefers to be in the security of his apartment.
KIM’S GREEN BATHROOM: Kim takes the first shower.
AUTHORITY: Not fair.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’re way sweatier than he is.
PERCEPTION: But he is covered in more grease than you are.
LOGIC: And it is his apartment.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: What is he doing, jerking off in there?
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The lieutenant is not jerking off in there, although he is thinking about you swinging that hammer. He is just in there, letting the hot water beat down on his tight shoulders and neck, feeling vaguely guilty about taking so long.
YOU: You go into the bathroom -
INTERFACING: Which is not locked.
YOU - and lean your head against the doorframe. “You’re taking too long.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “What are you going to do about it?” There is something to his voice.
AUTHORITY: He’s smirking to himself. He doesn’t think you’re going to do anything.
1) Nothing. It’s his apartment, asshole.
2) Get in there with him.
3) Drag him out - bodily - and get in yourself.
4) Turn the water to cold on him. The binoclard won’t be able to see you do it.
YOU: You start stripping your clothes off.
VOLITION: Are you really going to do this?
AUTHORITY: You heard him. That was a challenge. You know what a Kim Kitsuragi challenge sounds like after all this time.
INTERFACING: You reach out for the shower curtain, where you can vaguely make out Kim’s shadowy form.
VOLITION: Last chance to get off this train.
1) Get off the train. Take your clothes shamefacedly and slink out.
2) Stand there completely naked and wait for him to get out. Wait, maybe you can even hang his towel on your…
3) Board that train. The whistle’s blowing, Harry. Now or never.
YOU: You pull the shower curtain back and get in, pulling it shut behind you before you can think better of it.
VOLITION: Holy fuck. You’re in the shower with Kim. Together. Naked.
VISUAL CALCULUS: This is a very small space. Very warm and humid.
PERCEPTION: There is a very naked, very wet Kim Kitsuragi only a few inches from you.
COMPOSURE: It would be rude to stare.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It would be rude not to stare.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It is impossible not to stare.
YOU: You stare. Kim is -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: He’s fucking perfect.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Perhaps the slightest softening around his gut -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Which you want to bite, because he’s fucking perfect.
VOLITION: I mean…yeah.
INLAND EMPIRE: He is.
PERCEPTION: He’s looking up at you, head cocked. His hair is wet, plastered darkly to his head. Water runs down his body.
YOU: You step closer, into the spray of the shower head.
INLAND EMPIRE: There is something in the air between you. A tension, a humming…
PERCEPTION: There is still a streak of grease on his shoulder.
YOU: “Um, you’ve got. Here.” You rub your thumb over it.
KIM KITSURAGI: He sucks in a breath. You can see his chest expand and expand and expand, his lungs filling the entire shower.
INLAND EMPIRE: Are they glowing?
KIM KITSURAGI: “Why are you in here, Harry?” His voice is low.
YOU: “Um. Because you’re in here?”
KIM KITSURAGI: A huff of laughter. “You do tend to follow me around like a lost dog.”
1) “That’s not true. I’m not a lost dog. I have a master.”
2) “That’s not true. I’m no dog.”
3) Try to look like a lost dog.
YOU: “That’s not true. I’m not a lost dog. I have a master.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do you now.” His voice is low and amused.
1) “That’s not true. I’m not a lost dog. I have a master.”
2) “That’s not true. I’m no dog.”
3) Try to look like a lost dog.
YOU: You try to look like a lost dog.
KIM KITSURAGI: Another huff of laughter. A curl to his smile, something lazy and heated. He steps closer.
PERCEPTION: You can feel the heat pouring off his body.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You want so badly to reach forward and wrap your arms around him, to pull him tight to you, press his hardening cock to yours.
YOU: What, his what?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Oh yeah. He’s perking up a little. So are you, pal.
YOU: Good thing he can’t see it.
KIM KITSURAGI: “You do realize I’m not so blind that I can’t see you looking at me?”
1) “Good.”
2) “You must be blind. I’m not looking at you.” [Lie.]
3) “Kim? This feels…kinda gay.”
YOU: “Kim? This feels…kinda gay.” KIM KITSURAGI: A broader smile. “This feels…extremely gay, Harrier.”
1) “Good.”
2) “You must be blind. I’m not looking at you.” [Lie.]
3) “Kim? This feels…kinda gay.”
YOU: “Good.”
INLAND EMPIRE: This man stands before you, water pouring down his body.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Like a holy statue in a storm. Watching over you.
PERCEPTION: His head is tilted up towards you.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He wants you to kiss him.
EMPATHY: If you wait any longer, he’s going to do it himself.
COMPOSURE: The lieutenant has trained himself for patience, but it does not come naturally to him.
INLAND EMPIRE: You swear you can see his lungs glowing.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You drop to your knees, heavily, before him. It hurts, a little.
AUTHORITY: Good. It should.
PERCEPTION: You can feel the slick tub under your knees. You shift, leaning forward. Water streams down and blinds you.
KIM KITSURAGI: He stares down at you, mouth open, brow furrowed -
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Remember, the binoclard’s a little blind -
KIM KITSURAGI: - then he draws in a breath when you nuzzle at his thigh, then his cock, in open-mouthed kisses. He tastes like soap, a little musky, and good god, you could swallow him whole.
INTERFACING: Well, you could try, anyway. Go on, give it a shot.
YOU: You lean forward, tongue out -
KIM KITSURAGI: As soon as you touch him, his hand is in your hair, jerking your head back.
YOU: You whine a little, staring up at him.
VISUAL CALCULUS: You don’t know how much he can see, but it’s enough to make him suck in a breath.
EMPATHY: Or maybe it’s just the idea of it.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You pant a little, tongue out, for effect.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Up,” he says, and tugs slightly.
AUTHORITY: You rise.
KIM KITSURAGI: He is already fumbling behind him to shut the water off. “Not in here,” he says.
YOU: “Aw, why not?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Not for - not for now,” he says.
INLAND EMPIRE: He was going to say, not for the first time.
DRAMA: Is the lieutenant a bit of a romantic?
EMPATHY: If you tease him about this now, you absolutely will not get your dick touched.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: So shut the fuck up, you self-sabotaging asshole. We literally cannot remember the last time someone not us touched our dick. Or the last time our dick has been touched not in this shower.
INLAND EMPIRE: It’s been a long, long time.
KIM KITSURAGI: He tugs you out of the tub and towards his bedroom. He grabs a towel on the way past and swipes at himself a little, then hands it to you as you try to dry yourself - your mat of hair holds water like a mink - as you follow him.
PERCEPTION: There is water in the small of his back he hasn’t caught. Droplets that sparkle in the sun as you enter the bedroom, light streaming through the window. You want to lick it off him. The purest morning dew.
LOGIC: Technically, it’s early evening….
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Shut the fuck up. God. No wonder we can’t get laid.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: You are in the sanctuary of Kim’s bedroom.
KIM KITSURAGI: He turns, backs of his knees at the edge of the bed. He sits, pulls you forward with both hands until you stand between his spread thighs.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: His cock. Fuck, his fucking cock -
COMPOSURE: You’re shy, suddenly, with his glasses back on, his eyes roaming over you.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harrier…what are you thinking?”
HALF LIGHT: You’re thinking you want to devour him.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You’re thinking you want to fuck his brains out.
AUTHORITY: You’re thinking you want him to fuck your brains out.
EMPATHY: You’re thinking you love this man.
VOLITION: You’re thinking this time, maybe, you’ll get it right.
YOU: “You,” is all you can manage to get out as you bring a shaking hand up to his face. Your thumb brushes his cheek, fingers brushing wet hair.
KIM KITSURAGI: He turns - very slowly - into your hand - and presses his mouth to your palm.
YOU: You moan.
COMPOSURE: Embarrassingly.
KIM KITSURAGI: His eyes flash. You feel a smile curve against your palm.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Feel his cock jump against your thigh -
YOU: Then you are pressing forward, climbing him, and he is tugging at your towel, throwing it on the ground, pulling you on top of him -
PERCEPTION: The sheets are cold on your still-wet skin in the open window, cold evening air pouring in. Kim is hot against you, and wet, shower-heat and Kim-heat, and you wrap your arms around him and pull him close to you, pressing your mouth into his neck. “Can I, Kim?” you ask. “Please?”
KIM KITSURAGI: A huff over your head. “I believe you already are, Harrier.”
YOU: You bite a little, as reproof, and his hips buck into yours.
INTERFACING: You kiss, the two of you, his mouth hot and wet and sharp, and you groan as you roll onto your back. He climbs on top of you, thighs bracketing your hips, the drag of half-wet skin against half-wet skin, but that doesn’t stop you.
KIM’S APARTMENT: A cool breeze comes in through the window. You shiver, a little.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim resettles his body weight, stretching out along you.
VOLITION:. Grounding you. Holding you down.
INLAND EMPIRE: This could be a volta, you think, your mouth on Kim’s body, wild, unrestrained.
YOU: “Here,” you say, shimmying from under him -
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: Or trying to. He accidentally elbows you in the gut; your knee jabs into his thigh -
YOU: “Let me. Please?” You’re kneeling beside him, glancing between his cock, his face. His cock, his face.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is leaned back on his elbows, staring at you. Legs sprawled a little wide. He almost looks like he can’t believe his luck.
EMPATHY: He can’t.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do you know what you’re doing here?” he asks. A little curl to the side of his mouth.
AUTHORITY: He’s in for a ride, he thinks.
YOU: You look from his cock, then to him, then shrug and grin.
KIM KITSURAGI: A huff of laughter. “You are unbelievable. Literally. I don’t quite believe in you. Sometimes I think you’re another cryptid…” and then he’s babbling, because your mouth is on his cock, tonguing at the base and up, licking long stripes until you get to the head and swirl around, going down as far as you can.
INTERFACING: You choke, a little.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Fuck yeah you do.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He likes a bit of tongue right -
INTERFACING: there.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim groans. You look up, where his head is thrown back, tendons standing out on his neck. To the side, where his fists are clenched in the sheets.
YOU: Thanks, Coach!
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Don’t mention it. No, really.
SAVOIR FAIRE: That was pretty gay of you, coach.
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: If we’re going to suck dick, at least we’re going to be good at it.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: Well…‘good’ might be a bit of a stretch, but Kim sure seems to be enjoying it, anyway.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Your jaw is fucking killing you.
COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: There might be something to respect in this whole cock-sucking business after all.
YOU: You focus on Kim, the way he feels under your hand - touching his thigh, his groin, his balls, the base of his cock, slippery and wet with your own drool. You can’t stop touching him. You’re on your knees, legs spread wide to stabilize yourself, your other hand tugging at yourself.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is trembling, every muscle in his body like a restrained bird. You can’t stop watching him - eyes fluttering shut, squeezing tight, then opening wide on yours, and the way he pants when he meets your eyes -
ENDURANCE: You haven’t stopped looking at him this whole time. Fuck, he’s beautiful.
KIM KITSURAGI: The shapes his mouth makes, the twitch of his jaw -
YOU: You pull off enough to mumble, “That’s it,” into the incredibly soft junction of his hip and thigh.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: And to breathe a little.
KIM KITSURAGI: His eyes fly open and stare down at you as you mouth at the side of his cock, press your tongue just to the underside of the head.
YOU: “C’mon, please, Kim, please, for me?”
KIM KITSURAGI: His eyes very wide, mouth wet, wet dark hair falling down on his forehead. He half-nods, once.
YOU: And you take him in. He lets out a half-noise of warning - just something small, his thighs tensing under your hand -
KIM KITSURAGI: And then he comes into your mouth, a gasp, a hot surge on your tongue, painting the roof of your mouth, the back of your throat, and you take it in like the best Commodore Red you’ve ever had -
DRAMA: Commodore RCM -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Goddamnit, not now -
YOU: He’s trembling as you finish with a few licks and then sit up on your heels, rising over him, one hand petting his hip, the other clenching into a fist at your side, not touching yourself.
AUTHORITY: Like a good boy.
YOU: You kneel over him and watch his chest heave, watch him return to the world.
KIM KITSURAGI, A REBORN MAN: He opens his eyes slowly, meets your gaze, then looks at you all over, running his eyes over you with a weight you can feel. His eyes are very very dark and linger on your cock, which is extremely hard, bordering on uncomfortable.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You can’t help it. You half fuck-forward into the air, whimpering.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Here,” he says, nearly a growl, and you shuffle accordingly until he gets his very hot hand on you.
ENDURANCE: Oops.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It’s all over.
PERCEPTION: All over Kim, maybe. His cock, his stomach, his chest.
KIM KITSURAGI: He grunts. His cock twitches.
EMPATHY: He likes that.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: ………
PHYSICAL: After your brain slowly collects itself, you slump to Kim’s side. You swipe ineffectually at your come with the flat of your hand, then, giving up, take a corner of the sheet and clean him off.
KIM KITSURAGI: He raises an eyebrow.
AUTHORITY: You are so fucked-out it doesn’t even work on you.
VOLITION: Much.
YOU: “What, would you rather I licked it off?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes.”
AUTHORITY: Oh.
YOU: You half-rise on your elbow -
KIM KITSURAGI: “Not now. Maybe next time.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Next time????
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Welcome back, champ. Nice work there.
VOLITION: About time you did something useful instead of destructive for a change.
YOU: “Kim, I think we need another shower.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He laughs and shakes his head. “Maybe later.” He shifts, rolls to face you, and pushes on your hip and waist -
AUTHORITY - fingers lingering, as if he owns it -
INLAND EMPIRE: He does.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: You have sworn your fealty like a Franconigerian knight.
KIM KITSURAGI: - and rolls you until you are facing the window, the failing light.
INTERFACING: He tucks up behind you, pressing close.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Spooning you.
AUTHORITY: You always knew Kim Kitsuragi would be big spoon.
KIM KITSURAGI, BIG SPOON: He lets out a huff into your shoulder, rubs his nose against it. You can feel his smile. “For now…” he trails off, lets it die out into the air.
PERCEPTION: He is warm, his legs pressed against yours. His slightly sticky stomach and cock. His arm thrown around you, strong, holding you close.
INLAND EMPIRE: His lungs pressed against yours. Rising and falling. Your breathing falls in time. In and out. In and out. In and…
YOU: “Kim…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes?”
1) “I love you.”
2) “That was great.”
3) “I approve of this homosexual underground thing. We need to spread the word.”
4) “Do you think Contact Mike ever sucked dick?”
5) “Do I have to go back to my apartment?”
YOU: “Do you think Contact Mike ever sucked dick?”
KIM KITSURAGI: A huff. “I don’t know. You’re the Contact Mike expert here. What do you think?”
YOU: “…No.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He shifts a little. You push back into him. “No? And why is that?”
YOU: “There is no way he’d be the eleven-time champion if he ever sucked dick. He’d never be able to do anything else.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Mmm. Maybe he sucked dick after those wins.”
YOU: “Could be.”
KIM’S APARTMENT: A pause. Kim’s lungs to yours, yours hearts beating in sync.
INLAND EMPIRE: This man will keep you alive.
VOLITION: There is something you should clear up.
1) “I love you.”
2) “That was great.”
3) “I approve of this homosexual underground thing. We need to spread the word.”
4) “Do you think Contact Mike ever sucked dick?”
5) “Do I have to go back to my apartment?”
YOU: “Do I have to go back to my apartment?”
KIM KITSURAGI: He shuffles, leaning up a little.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You are cold immediately.
HALF LIGHT: This is it. Here it comes. He’s gotten what he’s wanted out of you and now he’s leaving you.
LOGIC: Technically, he’ll make you leave.
INLAND EMPIRE: Outside the Video Revachol…
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He’s disgusted by you.
KIM KITSURAGI: His hand falls heavy on your waist. “No. Not if you don’t want to. Do you want to?”
YOU: You blink, and swallow, and blink again. “I really don’t.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He settles back down behind you. Pulls you even closer. “Then no.”
PERCEPTION: You lay there, watching the light fade out of the sky. Below, the streetlights come on, casting an orange glow up towards the sky.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Behind you, Kim’s eyes are closed. He is going to fall asleep holding you, very soon.
YOURS AND KIM’S APARTMENT: In through the open window comes a cool wind. You shiver, but Kim is warm behind you. You hear the sounds that Kim’s - yours and Kim’s apartment makes in evening: the honk of horns below in the street, a faint call of laughter, the birds as they call their goodnights to each other before nesting in the eaves, in the stunted trees, in the neon sign above the Frittte.
SHIVERS: A woman passes below. She is drunk, but she is happy, and she is walking along with her head back looking at the buildings above her. She sees an open window, the curtains blowing in and out. A dark room. She wonders who lives there, what they are like, and then she passes on.
YOURS AND KIM’S APARTMENT: Tonight, you and Kim will sleep in this bed, on fresh sheets he insists you help put on. You will wake, startled, out of a bad dream, and wonder where you are, scared until you remember that you are in your apartment. The one you share with Kim.
You are home.