Blink slid his tongue around his lips before stretching luxuriously on the bed.
"When some people take it," he mused. "They just lie there. It makes me want to fuck. Mushy, you wanna fuck?"
Mush sat on the other side of the room, all of his limbs crossed. It was quite obvious that it was something he didn't want to do.
"C'mere," Blink beckoned, stroking his ribcage.
Mush couldn't stop staring at the bruises on his arms and neck. How many times would he do it? How many times would Blink go out and shoot up? The makeup and retouching could only hide it for so long. No one but a sadist would want to jerk off to a junkie with bruised arms.
"Aw, I know," he cooed. "You don't wanna 'cause of your daddeh. Didn't like it when he fucked you, baby?"
Mush stood and started for the bathroom. He didn't know what else to do. Blink was intolerable when he was high. And he was horribly mopey when he was sober. He kept things in, Mush had realized. The rape, the drugs, everything. Blink was killing himself. He knew it. He'd end up like Jack and David; another modeling casualty.
Mush splashed cold water onto his face, feeling the icy liquid hit him like Blink's earlier words about his father. He had told him about his father. Dead in the ground from cancer. Mush had thought he had done it to him. He would have if he could've. He closed his eyes and rested his burning forehead on the cool mirror. Hands that had once grasped his mother's silk sheets wrapped firmly around the porcelain edge of the sink. He was fucked up. He bit down on a lower lip that had once been bitten like a piece of fruit by his father.
Mush clicked his tongue, remembering that it was the same tongue that had tasted the salty smell of his father, tasting something that had made him. He spat angrily into the sink, suddenly disgusted with himself.
He grabbed his toothbrush and scrubbed his teeth hard. He couldn't taste anything but peppermint but somewhere, his taste buds could remember the taste of his father and it sickened him.
After he brushed his teeth, Mush trudged back into the bedroom to see Blink tying a rubber band around his upper arm, tightening it with his teeth.
"Blink, don't," he said wearily, having to watch him pat the arm for a vein.
"I'm good with needles," he murmured, groping blindly in their nightstand.
"Blink, don't," he repeated. "Please. You're already…"
But it was too late. Mush cringed when he saw Blink slide the needle under his flesh.
"Mmm," he murmured, stretching. "My mind is an ocean, Mush. Swelling and unswelling, rising and falling…billowing, man. Like the ocean. Waves crashing in my mind. My mind is the eye of the ocean…"
"Blink," he said quickly, running to him and putting his arms around his slim shoulders. "Please…let's get out of here. Ditch the scene. It's fucking us up. We'll end up like Jack and David. Let's go to California or Europe. Yeah, let's go to Europe, Blink. Please."
Blink reached for him and ran his fingers through his hair. "I want to climb inside your mind, Mush. Tell me what you dream. Tell me what you want."
He shook him. "Come on. Let's go! We don't have to be models. We can go out, be normal. We'll get you off the junk. Come on, we'll go to Europe. The sexiest men, Blink."
Blink let his head fall on Mush's shoulder and he was smiling. Mush hugged him, his own words reverberating in his head. About Jack and David. Jack and Blink were the only two he had told about his father. Blink because he wanted an honest relationship and Jack because Jack had admitted what his photographer had done to him when he was eleven. Not that it mattered anymore. Jack was dead and Blink might as well be. Still, saying their names brought back the memories of the shoots and the endless waiting in the hospital and seeing David looking about seven years old on the bed and then the funeral.
Mush let his head fall against Blink's. He needed to help him. He couldn't let that happen to him.