Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

Mark sits down. His eyes are blue, deep and cold. He uses them as weapons. He uses them to penetrate. I think very dirty thoughts. Proportionately, Mark is a very lucky boy.

He wants something. He always gives me that same half-smile when he wants something.

Mark offers a mug. "Milk?" he asks.

In two weeks I'll be laughing at myself. No caffeine. And really, what the hell am I thinking? Cutting any drug out of my life, I say, keeping myself totally clean. Caffeine is only one of my "demons".

In two weeks I'll be sucking a smoke like it's the sweetest cock on the face of the earth. Today, I take the mug from Mark. "Thanks."

He smiles.

We used to swap, Maureen and I, one and two and three times a week. When he was with Maureen, Mark couldn't get enough of me. I knew every time he glanced at me that his temperature rose, and I loved knowing. It's hard now to know that he doesn't see me like that. It's hard that when Mark looks at me, he sees only illness. He feels pity.

"Who… got sick?" Mark asks. "Who was sick first?"

I flinch. "I don't know," I admit. "It could've been on the needle. I don't know."

Mark doesn't like this answer, I can see, but he nods. "Do you remember the first time?" Mark's camera lies on its side on the table, ready to be taken out, to be tinkered with. I can see little cameras in his eyes. I can see me in the lenses on his glasses. "Do you remember the first time you used heroin?"

Of course I can.

Do you remember when you lost your virginity?

You do. You remember the place, the time. You remember what clothes you wore. You remember if it was in his bedroom and he kissed your tits, if you were nervous and she guided you into it, the smell and how it was a lot of fun but not romantic. You remember if it was some little-dick asswipe shoving you up against a back alley wall. And some people like that. I don't. I would never want that.

The best part about AIDS, you'll never get raped. Even a rapist has more sense than that.

The first hit is like that. It's like you remember the rubber-chemical taste of the condom, "cherry flavored", as you wrapped your lips around him to give your first blowjob, or the semi-romantic smell of spice and pee that makes your hormones starting humping in your brain, that one whiff of pussy before you eat her out.

I think about sex.

I think about sex a lot, because I'll never have it again. I don't masturbate. When I need to I shoot it in the shower and scrub the shower out with bleach afterwards. The day Mark came back negative was the greatest relief of my life.

"She brought it home," I say, telling Mark that, "I didn't know what it was. We lit up and breathed it and fucked. I think. I remember the hit, I don't remember what we did."

"What else?"

I tell him what I was wearing, a lime-green collared shirt, polyester, that April said gave me a well-defined boy bosom. Nice, April. April was a lesbian waiting to happen. She always wanted to talk about tits. That shirt has white spirals and white buttons. I was also wearing boxers with Tweety bird on them.

I wasn't wearing pants. I was also wearing a sock.

She was wearing a nice dress, and I mean nice, slinky black, actually a slip. She had her hair down and vibrant red smeared across her lips. Looking at her made me feel dirty.

I tell Mark how I didn't want to get high. "I said I'd pass," I tell him. I see in his eyes that he wishes I had. I wish I had. "I said I was going to go whack off, I didn't need a high, just a tug. April convinced me to stay. She wanted to try it out, she was really excited about this. She was like a kid. Said she'd suck me off after.

"My entire life, mortgaged for a blow."

Tears well. I know I won't cry them. Mark's face softens and I wish he would reach out and touch my arm and say that it's okay, that I'm still alive. Collins would say that. Collins would say that you aren't dead until your heart stops beating.

Mark doesn't say anything.

"After the first hit, April wanted it again. It wasn't as good sometimes. She'd be a real bitch. At first she would yell at me to go get more, good stuff. I don't think I was addicted even then. I would threaten to leave her and she would turn sweet.

"I could've turned back then. We weren't shooting up yet. April was a heavier user than I was. I started using when I couldn't stand her. Eventually we would shoot up and fuck and fight."

Mark nods. He remembers that period. Seems we were always at each other's throats, but neither of us could hold a grudge long enough to leave. I guess if we could've, if I had turned and walked away we both might be alive.

I look at the street. I can't face Mark's pity.

"Do you miss her?" he asks quietly.

I ask, "April?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Don't be suck an idiot. You know, I really loved her. I kept telling her, get off it, get clean, and she kept saying if I really loved her… I started shooting up to understand her. And it made me feel good, and I did it again. That's when it got bad.

"It's my fault, my responsibility." I have to acknowledge that. I am only a victim of my own foolishness. "Still, I blamed her for bringing it home. At least a little, I blame her."

"Well," Mark says, "April…"

He trails off because of the strange look I am giving him.

I shake my head. "No," I say. "It wasn't April who first brought it into the loft.

"It was Maureen."

the end

Reviews would be super awesome