Title: Parallel Reality

Author: (Insert Cliché Here)

Notes: Arright. This is a weird kind of experiment. There are two stories here which go together strangely well, I think. They were separate, but then I combined them. Try reading them together first, and then separately. Obviously, one comes after the other. I'm leaving it up to you to decide which.

My reality keeps me happy. The air is thick. My reality isn't like most people's reality. My reality is full of abstract imagery and close-up shots and panning across cold, barren spaces. That's my reality. Nothing feels real.

Roger's reality is one I'll never really understand. Roger's tongue is in my ear and each time I exhale Roger's reality is a blank stare, a listless shrug, a slow step away from fear and pain. Roger's reality keeps him sedated, I moan. because if he starts to slope into my reality, he starts to lose his mind.

"No, I can't tell you why I'm behaving this way, Mark," he bellows at me, "because I don't know." He begins to whisper things to me, things he wants to do to me, things he wants to feel and make me feel.

I stand still I crane my head desperately, and the camera recedes into the ceiling, taking in the scene. "I won't ask, then." kissing him sloppily and ferociously. I'm trying to find his reality, because if I can take this with a blank stare and a listless shrug, I might be able to take a slow step away from the fear and the inevitable pain. He won't mean to hurt me. I'm rarely this passionate about anything, but He never does mean to, but he will. all I want is for our clothes to disappear and for his hands to never leave my skin.

I take a step back and piece together the events that lead up to this moment. He undoes my jeans and slides them off my body. For a straight man, he's quite confident about putting my cock in his mouth. He's quite good at it, too. Not that I have much to compare it to. They're little more than jumbled shards, papers taken out of a filing cabinet and put back in clumps in the wrong order. I feel his knuckles connect with my stomach For the first time since I was a little kid; close-up on the crease between my eyes, the pained expression on my face. "Don't—" I begin, but it's far too late by the time the words come out. I try to dissolve my reality, I'm not measuring the moments in zooming cameras or surrealistic angles. to slip into Roger's reality. Pain is a fallacy in Roger's reality. Pain is my reality, however, and I can't step away. All there is before me is a man I love and whom I've always loved and his tongue's frantic activity.

I land on my knees I wonder if this euphoria comes from the fact that my cock is in his mouth or, doubled over. He's always hit hard. I gasp the fact that I've been waiting for this since the day I met him.. For a moment, all I can see is warm breath surrounding me in the cold air, but The situation we're in no longer makes sense in the way I've always considered logical, it all fades and soon my breath is cold air. but I love it. "Did that help?" I whisper, not sure if he can hear me.

He can. There's no more silence now, because "Not nearly enough," he says shortly. I wince in pain as the parts that aren't filled with my moans are filled with the soft sound of his hand rubbing my thigh. I drag myself up, and My hands are in his hair, the camera zooms in on my feet taking slow steps toward his. and the bleached-blonde spikes scratch My reality surrounds me, confuses me, taunts me. I can never make him happy, because I cannot see the world the way he does. His reality and mine are polar opposites that will not match up, because he will never try to see the world the way I do. But I'm going to try as hard as I can. the bleached-blonde spikes scratch my palms and poke me uncomfortably.

I meet his eyes, I don't care if I bleed. and the room fades to black and all that is visible is a pair of bright green eyes staring into mine. "Then hit me again." Minutes pass, minutes of me whispering words to him that

His brow furrows, I barely hear. and something slips out of his eyes, replaced by something else. "Hit you again?" Our bodies move together, and the lust and the wonder and the thrill slowly surround us.

"Hit me again," I whisper, "and keep hitting me until you feel better." I grab his hair furiously and

"I'll kill you." His eyes shift strangely, looking at my stomach, my arms, my face, measuring his options—which part of me should he bruise first? my climax is surprisingly silent and gentle.

The room brightens slightly, My mouth gaping in an O, a barren blue. I release a shaky breath as I speak but there is no noise. My mouth forms a sentence, and the sound of my tongue hitting my teeth and lips is perfectly audible to him. he turns his head to the side to spit out the creamy substance that filled his mouth. "I don't mind, Roger." "Roger, I love you."

His stare is anything but blank. He looks at me, and the reality My reality is anything but abstract. what he's done appears on his face. A mixture of There's disgust and a lull horror, a haze and shame, and it is in his eyes, is a shared reality, devoid of his excruciating emptiness or my excruciating fullness. and I know that while in my mind, this was beautiful and perfect, things won't be that way in his. His fist is raised.He shakes his head, and My eyes are closed. my heart plummets.His reality and I am completely off guard as his lips find mine. My eyes shoot wide and close again. my reality I feel myself smile, and the shared reality fills us both. are so different, after all...The air is thick, and nothing feels real.