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Someone's writing a book about Billy.
He's gotten reports from half a dozen people who still give a shit about him, saying they didn't say anything, saying they said things the best way they could.
It's sordid. It's sleazy. Why would someone want to put this on paper? But he can't stop them without a lot more legal mojo than he can afford on his Jenifur royalties.
He can't stop thinking about what they might find. It's only a matter of time before the reporter guy tracks him down, if he hasn't already.
"Your father was imprisoned for sexual abuse of a minor. The victim was never named but there are rumors that it was you. Is that true?"
No, it's not true.
"He died in prison. Do you have any comment on that?"
No.
"How would you characterize your home life?"
It was great. We ate ice cream in the park and chased collie dogs into the sunset.
"How would you characterize yourself as a kid?"
Fucked up.
He drops the phone receiver back on the cradle.
He sits and looks at the phone. It's black. It's solid. It's got pretty red buttons. He thinks about phone cables, TV cables, computer cables sending information back and forth through the walls of his apartment. It's a creepy feeling. The walls aren't as thick as they seem--but he's always known that.
The phone rings again and he stares at it. Just stares for four rings and then picks up.
"Billy, you asshole," Mary says. "You fucking maniac. You're not getting her." And she hangs up. Funny, she used to be so nice. He must be rubbing off.
He wheels into the kitchen to get a beer.
"What do you make of the startling resemblance of your own injuries to the injuries that Joe Dick reported as inflicted on Bucky Haight?"
Nothing. Life is some kind of fucked up.
"Who do you think did this to you? A rival? A fan?"
I don't know. I didn't see anything.
"But the cop who took your statement says you told him it was Joe Dick."
I was drugged.
"How are you coping?"
Just fine.
He leans back in the chair with a beer in his lap, looking up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. They look like an upraised finger. The bugs are giving him the big Fuck You.
He starts thinking about insects and graves and bugs eating Joe's drug-decayed alcohol-sodden flesh; cocaine-riddled bugs humping like bunnies and making generation after generation of deformed little punkass bugs spreading out across the plains and mountains between Edmonton and here.
Five years make a lot of little bugs. The bugs spread over the plains, the spiders eat the bugs, and Joe's flesh follows Billy wherever he goes.
Joe would like being resurrected as a spider, except for the orderly webmaking part. Billy keeps an eye out for a web shaped like the anarchy symbol and wheels back into the living room.
"How did you meet Joe Dick?"
Little League.
"Is it true that you were in love with Joe Dick?"
No.
"Is it true that you and he had a sexual relationship?"
No. Pervert.
"The mother of your child says otherwise."
She doesn't know anything.
"Do you know what happened to Joe Dick's body?"
No... I heard it was stolen.
"What are your feelings about his death?"
I have none.
There is a name and a number written on a piece of paper by the phone. His lawyer got it for him. He fingers it, rubs it, reads it over and over, memorizes the number. Breaks it down and looks for hidden meaning. He takes a swig of beer and doesn't call.
He turns on the TV instead and watches the old movie channel.
Shirley Temple. Cute. Tap dancing, he can get into that.
He's halfway through the third beer before he realizes how fucked-up ironic it is for him to be watching a little girl tap dance.
The phone rings. He picks it up. "Yeah?"
Nothing. Just breathing.
Joe used to do that all the time in the years they lived apart. Never spoke to him, just called him up at odd times and breathed at him. It seemed--intimate; like having Joe wrapped around him in bed, breathing in his ear and drooling on his neck after a long night of playing and fucking.
His body suddenly remembers the precise feel of Joe's, and he shivers and hangs up the phone.
Dark now. Time for some serious drinking and then bed.
"Do you think about Joe?"
No. What kind of question is that?
"He was part of your life for twenty years..."
No, he was just there. Hard Core Logo, that was me, that was all me, just like Jenifur, they were nothing before they had me. It's all Billy Tallent's big fucking talent.
"Do you play these days?"
Every day.
He sets the whiskey bottle on the night stand and sits next to the bed playing. He plays every day, every single day that he's conscious. He had to bribe a nurse to get it into the hospital.
His fingers caress the strings. It's not plugged in. It doesn't need to be. He just needs to hear his fingers make music. Good old hands, he still has those.
When he turned to face the man who shot him, he tucked his hands under his arms. He would rather take a blow to the chest than to the hands--at least if he stopped to think about it, and wasn't swinging away in a bar fight. But the shotgun was aimed at his feet.
He stops playing. Puts the guitar down. Time for bed.
He folds up the arm of the chair, slides over into the bed, turns off the light, picks up the bottle. Chugs the whiskey until his mind stops working.
He passes out. It feels like sleep.
"Is it true that you have a drinking problem?"
No.
"The judge denied access to your daughter until you went through rehab."
The judge doesn't know dick. Mary doesn't know dick.
"Your former housekeeper testified against you."
She's a liar too.
He's drifting in half-sleep, sprawled across the bed. The housekeeper throws the window wide and starts cleaning up the empties and dirty clothes and spills of whatever. The nurse comes in behind her and shakes Billy fully awake.
People around now. Time to get up. He opens his eyes and lets himself be dragged out of bed. Morning again. He wheels into the bathroom.
Morning is a passive time. In the morning he sits back and lets other people shove him around. Afternoon is a fighting time, when he sits at the phone and works for his daughter and the fragments of his career.
Nights are bad. At night the memories come.
He pulls himself together and washes his hands and face. He opens the door and gives the nurse a big fake smile. He doesn't mind her giving him a bath, not at all. Not a bit. It's as close as he gets to sex these days, since he doesn't like to pay. Pay or actually leave the apartment.
She sits on the edge of the bathtub and turns on the tap. "So how are you really feeling today?"
"Hmm?"
"You act the same whether you're having a terrible day or a wonderful day. So I'm asking how you're really feeling."
He smiles, revealing nothing. "I'm good."
She gives him a searching look, trying to strip him naked. "That reporter called again."
"Did he?"
"I didn't tell him anything."
"You can tell him whatever you want. I don't care. Just tell him I have a big dick and I'll be happy." He gives her a sunny smile.
She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "I really wish you would just tell me things instead of making me work for them." She stares at him, and he stares back, and the tub fills, and she loses. He's got ten years and a hard life on her; she never had a chance.
She sighs; she turns off the water and kneels down. "Let me see."
He holds up his leg for her. She rolls up his pants and takes a look at the stump. His legs stop mid-shin, just long enough to fill out his pants. "I wish you were healing up faster. You'll need to toughen up a lot before we can get you onto artificial legs."
"I've always been a slow healer," he says. She looks up at his face, at the pink scars on his cheeks and nose.
"I suppose so."
He looks down at her. He knows what he looks like. A hard face made steely by pain and loss.
She looks determined. Usually that means extra PT or some kind of morale-boosting bullshit. "I want you to go to the coffee shop with me. You haven't left the apartment in two months."
Morale-boosting bullshit, sure enough.
"All right," he says, surprising himself.
"How do you feel about being a star?"
It's cool.
"How did you get here?"
I don't know.
"What do you think of your fans?"
They're cool.
There's a sign on the window of the coffee shop: "The Pie Rat Princess and her Fuzzy-Headed Hat of Wonder. Appearing Fridays!" There's a picture of a top hat and a wand with a star.
He wheels over the threshold. Almost gets stuck in the door. The nurse helps him out, holds it open. "I need a cigarette," he says.
"Smoking section is over there." He picks a table in the corner with his back to the room and lights up. She follows him. "What do you want?"
"Black coffee. Plain. Lots of it." He touches his pants. "I have money."
"You can pay the bill." She heads over to the counter. He stares at the table top. It's printed with old hoochie flyers, lots of cartoon girls with stars on their nipples. He used to know a chick band who did stuff like that, came out in electrical tape and trash bags and feathers and then rocked the drooling testosterone hounds hard, up until one of them lost half the skin on her breasts to duct tape. Then they moved to Calgary and opened a record store. Together.
Joe thought that story was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. Billy thought it was romantic. If he'd pulled off Joe's nipples with duct tape, would things have been different?
Maybe.
The nurse comes back. "They'll bring it out. I got some croissants too."
He nods and takes a drag. He crosses his legs and flicks his Zippo. The empty pants leg looks expectant like an open mouth.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm good." Cigarette's almost gone. She grabs a free entertainment paper from the rack on the windowsill and flips through it.
He stubs out his cigarette.
"Article on you," she says. He holds out his hand for the paper, and she hands it to him just as the coffee and croissants arrive. She's got something frothy and cold in a tall glass and he's got a press-pot full of thick black brew. The waitress gives him a funny look, but finally sets down the check and leaves.
He snags a croissant and looks at the article. "It's about Jenifur."
"But it speaks very well of you."
He reads the article. "I had a tragic downfall?"
She shrugs. "You could call it that."
He looks at her. "I wouldn't call it that."
"What would you call it?"
He smiles. He bites into the croissant. It's not bad. Not as good as Canadian, but not bad. He pours the coffee.
"Billy?"
"Huh. Trevor grew a mustache. Looks like a porn star." Trevor looked gaunt. He hung back behind Christy and Mike. The new guitarist was tall and pretty and stood with his arm slung around Becca in the foreground.
He had two entire paragraphs. A biography sketch and a few words about his music. The reviewer said that the time Billy was with the band was the only time they were actually any good.
It warmed his cockles just a bit.
There's someone approaching. He closes the paper.
"Hey, are you in a band?" Two kids, twenty years old tops.
"No."
They keep staring. "You look familiar."
"I'm your father, Luke." He drinks his coffee and waits for their synapses to line up. The nurse is watching him.
"You're Billy Tallent!" The one kid is all excited now. He punches his friend in the arm. "He was in Jenifur!"
Billy smirks at the tabletop, brings a carefully distant smile up to the kids. "Yeah. I'm Billy Tallent."
"So it's true about the shotgun thing?"
Billy keeps his smile fixed. "I guess it must be."
"Wicked." They both ogle him.
He hates them. He really, truly hates them. He takes a drink of coffee. "So do you want to touch my stump?"
They go wide-eyed. "What?"
"Do you want. To touch my stump?" He smiles a little wider. He thinks about propositioning them, both of them. He would if he thought they would do it, but there's no point in acting like a star and getting shot down in public. That's just humiliating.
The one kid's hand twitches like he's thinking about it. "Um, no, man." They back off. They're gone.
Billy thinks about the taste of Joe's dick versus the taste of Trevor's and smiles at the nurse. She looks a little freaked and a little sad.
"How was your relationship with Jenifur?"
Fine.
"But they kicked you out."
It was a mutual thing.
"What about the rumor that you raped Trevor?"
Hah. Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.
"Did any of them visit you after the shooting?"
No.
Afternoon and he's alone again. He calls his lawyer.
"The case is dead in the water. Do you want honesty or a diplomatic falsehood?"
"Gee, what a choice. Tell the truth."
"You're a basket case with a very scary background and you're never going to see that child again."
He laughs. It feels good, so he does it again.
"Anything else, Mr. Tallent?"
"No." He hangs up.
The other card is still there beside the phone. He looks at it, picks it up, touches it to his mouth. He bites down on it and dials the number from memory.
"Williams."
He takes the card out of his mouth. "This is Tallent. You remember the job we talked about?"
"Sure."
"Do it."
"And the money?"
"Whatever it takes."
"I'll keep in touch." The connection breaks.
He sits back, rubbing the card between his fingers, feeling nauseated and elated at once.
He slips the card into his pocket and wheels back into the bedroom to get his guitar. He feels like playing. Maybe he can write a song.
"How do you feel about your music?"
Love it.
"Is it true that Joe burned the songs you wrote?"
No.
"Is it true that you see Joe's face on other people?"
No. Never. Not once.
Funny how fast the days go once the phone stops ringing. It's a shock when he hears it again.
"Tallent."
"It's done."
"Great. Can you bring it over?"
"What--to your apartment?"
"Yeah."
"That's illegal."
"So?"
"This'll cost."
"I have money."
"Okay. Okay. One hour."
"Is it true that you think about him all the time?"
No.
"Is it true that you're a consummate liar?"
No.
"Are you lying to me?"
Not entirely.
He opens the door. Williams was there.
"Where is it?"
"Downstairs. We had to be sure you were here." Williams fires up his cell phone. "Bring it up."
Billy wheels back. Williams gives him a once-over, the usual look. "I can find the guy who did that to you."
"No, forget it."
"I have connections. I've heard rumors. It wouldn't take long."
Billy shakes his head.
"Or the punks that stole the body to begin with, I could find them too. Get them convicted."
"This is all I want."
"All right, all right."
Another guy appears at the door carrying a trunk. "Where do you want it?"
"In here is fine." Billy eyes the trunk. "Is that everything?"
"Yeah, wrapped up all neat and tidy."
"Cool." Billy tosses him an envelope. "Scram."
They leave. He's alone.
He locks the door behind him.
He wheels back into the living room and unclasps the trunk. There's a series of velvet bags inside, labeled with little white card tags.
Legs.
Arms.
Hands.
Feet.
Spine.
Skull.
He's bent over, leaning on the edge of the trunk, trying to decide what to look at first. He picks up the bag marked "right hand."
The hand inside is articulated. There's a little hole at the wrist where it would attach to the arm, and some wire scratches on the bone.
He recognizes the big lump on the index finger. He broke the bone between his teeth during the big fight. John wrote him and told him that Joe had let it fester and very nearly lost the finger. He misses you, John said. He needs you, John said. John was always trying to see romance where there was none--at least when he was on his pills. Take him off and the guy was as cynical and nihilistic as the rest.
This is the hand that took his virginity way back in the day. Joe coaxed him into a blow job and dived right in with his fingers, rubbing at his, his, what the hell do you call that. Rubbing from the inside and sucking on the outside so that it was the best pain he ever felt.
He touches his tongue to the tip of the fingerbone but it doesn't remind him anything of Joe. He puts the hand back in the bag.
Might as well dive in. He picks up the bag marked "skull" and peels back the velvet.
Right side entry, left side exit. The holes don't look so different, but what does he know? And there's the dent in his head he was so self-conscious about. The melted filigree of his coke-rotted sinuses. The divot in his eyebrow and the wreck of his teeth. The jaw is wired onto the skull; that's good, Joe will be able to mouth off when his body rises from the grave.
Billy waits for the emotion to come but there's nothing but the memories he long since sucked dry.
He thought once he had Joe's skull in his lap he'd know what to do. But all he can think is--Joe you dumbfuck, if you hadn't gone out with a bang then you might not be passed around like punk rock party favors today.
He feels like the greasy bones left over from a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He's not sure if that's really an emotion.
"Mr. Tallent, how would you characterize your current life?"
I wouldn't.
"Mr. Tallent, why are you so uncooperative?"
Because there's no juice left in this lemon.
He's lying in bed with the bones. He put the bar on the door so he can be alone. His housekeeper would have to break in through the window.
Joe's skull is resting on his chest. He strokes the dome. It does feel kind of cool, even if it doesn't feel like Joe.
Joe felt--greasy. But the stubble was soft. His hair was coarse and his skin was cool compared to Billy's near-fever heat. He closes his eyes and imagines, stroking his hands over the skull.
Joe's eyelids felt delicate when he rubbed them, fragile. He liked to touch Joe's eyes and his fingers, if only because Joe let him. Joe let him touch anything. He liked Billy's fingers too.
Sometimes Joe would seize Billy's fingers and hold them in his mouth between his teeth; he called it a trust exercise. He fucked Billy a few times with Billy's fingers clenched in his teeth, his hands on Billy's chest and Billy's legs around his waist. Billy still remembered the fear for his hands--he always knew Joe would fuck him up eventually--so Billy was pliant while Joe had him pinned. Accommodating. Then he beat the shit out of Joe, held him down and fucked his mouth. Every time.
Of course he values his dick less than his hands.
He imagines Joe's head between his hands so clearly. The curl of the ears, the stubble of hair, the soft skin of his cheeks.
He looks down at the skull on his chest and sees Joe's head staring back at him.
"What are you going to do, Billy?" He can feel the muscles moving in Joe's cheeks.
This is strange, but he still feels numb. It's just...strange. "You're dead, Joe."
"Congratulations, Captain Obvious."
He can feel the sucking wet stump of Joe's head on his chest. He can feel the skin on his face and the roughness of his hair. He can smell the blood and the heavy scent of Joe's skin. Joe's eyes are staring up at him.
"Why the fuck won't you leave me alone?" He knows he saw Joe's face on the guy who shot him. He heard Joe's breath on the phone. He's being haunted.
"Death is boring. I wouldn't have done it if I knew."
"Was there a bright light? Did you see your mom?"
"You're an asshole." The holes are opening up on the sides of his head. Billy could stick his fingers in them if he wanted to. "You perverted fuck! I see where you're looking." Joe's got that old sneer on his face, the same one he got when Billy sucked him off without waiting to be coerced.
"What do you want?"
"I told you! Death is boring, I came looking for the old days. I could give you head." Bright, vicious smile.
"I could set you on my dick and fuck your throat from the other end." He sneers right back.
"Ooh! Butt Boy Billy found his teeth!"
He suddenly feels--is this his life? Can this be his life? Lying crippled in his bed talking to his dead best friend's head? "Fuck you, Joe Dick," he whispers with choked-off fury boiling behind his teeth, and he hurls Joe's head against the wall.
It hits and bounces with a hollow thump. It's just a skull. The wired jaw sits cockeyed.
"Jesus," he mutters. He sits up and shoves the rest of the bones off the bed; rubs at his face, folds his stumps under him.
No comment.
In the morning the bones are back in the trunk under a quilt in the living room. The door's unbarred. Billy's lying in bed, not sleeping.
The housekeeper comes in and opens the window.
"Good morning," Billy says, and she jumps.
"Oh! Good morning, Mr. Tallent."
"You don't need to cook today. I'm going out."
"All right. I'll just clean up a little, then." She smiles and leaves the room. The nurse pops in after her.
"I want the day off," Billy says. "I have plans."
"Uh-huh. You mean you want me to take off without doing exercises?"
"Yeah." Billy goes for his cigarettes.
"Okay." She wiggles her eyebrows at him and leaves.
First step.
No fucking comment.
He opens the trunk and Joe's head stares up at him from the bottom.
"Got rid of them, eh?"
"We're all alone." Billy reaches in and picks Joe up. Sets him on his lap. Wheels back into the bedroom.
"You're taking this so well. Not everyone knows how to talk to their dead boyfriend."
"You're not my boyfriend." Billy shuts the door.
"Oh pardon me. Your worm chow man-friend."
Billy grimaces and pulls out his cigarettes.
"Give me one of those. I haven't had a smoke in ages."
He scowls around the cigarette. "You don't have any lungs. You can't inhale."
"I can talk."
"Don't remind me." Billy takes a long drag, looks down at Joe's head in his lap. He rests the cigarette in the bedside ashtray and takes careful hold of Joe's head. He lifts Joe up and touches their mouths together, passing him the exhaled smoke. Joe sucks the breath from him but it's not a kiss.
He sets Joe down and the smoke leaks from his mouth and nose and the stump of his windpipe.
"That was tender, Billy. A guy would almost think you cared." Joe speaks in plumes of smoke.
"I care more than I want to." Billy takes another drag and moves Joe to the bed. He heaves himself over beside him, curling around him.
Joe sneers. "Don't tell me you give a shit about me. You didn't. You left me, you fuck."
"It wasn't forever! It's never forever. Jesus. If I could get the fuck away from you I would have done it years ago. I guess if I can't get away it must be love, huh?"
"Love? Shit. You let some junkie posers dig me up and sell my bones to that faggot band! Do you know how embarrassing that is? I can't hold my head up in the fucking afterlife, you bitch!"
"Like I fucking knew you wanted them dug up."
"Well no, but if I had to be dug up, I'd like to think it was by my man Billy! You fucking let me down! That is not buddies and it is not love."
"You--Jesus." Billy looks away. "Fuck." He closes his eyes, holds his hands to his face. "Fuck!"
"It's all crashing down on you, huh? Poor little Billy."
"Shut the fuck up!" He rolls over and crouches on his hands and knees over Joe's head. "Shut the fuck up," Billy breathes. "Shut up, you lying asshole. You've never told me the truth in your life and you're not doing it in your death either."
"I'm the liar? Then what the hell are you?" Joe stares up at Billy. "When have you ever told me the flat-out truth without sticking some damn lies in there too?"
Billy tries to punch Joe's head, but his fist bounces off Joe's cheekbone from the bad angle. He loses his balance and falls onto the bed. Joe grins up at him.
"Remember what you told me about your dad, Billy?"
"Shut the fuck UP!"
"That was a pretty big lie. Lying to the cops, Billy, lying about your daddy, that's not nice."
"SHUT UP!" He backhands Joe's head off the bed. Cuts his hand on Joe's tooth.
Joe's voice drifts up from the side of the bed. "And no matter where you go--surprise! There you are!"
Billy hugs the blankets, presses them to his mouth. He doesn't know how Joe knows or what Joe knows or what Joe thinks the truth is. He wishes he could pretend not to know what the truth is. He wishes he were crazy like John so he had an excuse. He wishes he knew if Joe were a ghost or if he had finally cracked. "I've made peace with myself, Joe."
"Jesus fucking Christ, I can NOT believe I just heard that come out of your mouth." Joe snorts and Billy doesn't say anything. "You want to know why I shot you?"
Billy chokes and laughs. "You didn't shoot me. I was seeing things."
"Yeah, and now you're hearing things, and I fucking shot you."
He crawls to the edge of the bed and stares down at Joe. Joe stares back up at him. He's lying on his temple with his exposed neck pointing up and his hair spread over the carpet.
"You shot me."
"Yeah. You weren't suffering enough. You lost your art."
Billy just stares at him.
"And I had to crack open Billy Hollywood and get my loverboy Billy back. I'm glad to see you, buddy." Joe smiles. It looks strange upside down.
"You saying you love me?" Billy's chest hurts. From the angle.
"Yep. I love you and you don't love me, and I'm going to write a song about it." Joe blinks and pouts, making faces into the floor. "It's called 'Boo Hoo'."
"Fuck you." Billy pushes back from the edge.
"Uh oh. I'm staining your floor, Billy. There it goes."
He doesn't want to look. He looks. Joe's bullet holes have opened up again and he's bleeding into the wood. Billy reaches down and picks him up; he drops him onto the bed. Joe ends up facing away from him, upside down, bleeding from his temples and the stump of his neck.
He fucking hates Joe. He thought it was love, but it's the other side of the coin. He fucking hates Joe for leaving him alone like this, hates seeing his face at every turn, hates thinking he's lost his goddamn mind over this asshole.
There's an emotion. Finally. There's an emotion.
He unfastens his trousers.
"Billy? What are you doing?"
"Returning a present."
"What kind of cagey bullshit is that?"
Billy claps one hand over Joe's mouth and sticks his dick in the hole in Joe's temple. It feels--way past bizarre--but it feels good, good enough to keep going, thrusting into the soft squishy brains beyond the exit hole that was just big enough. Joe is shouting behind Billy's hand, the words muffled but the tone quite clear, and that feels good too. It feels like winning.
Billy's on top. Finally.
He thrusts and shouts and comes into a dry skull.
He's bleeding. Badly. The edge of the bullet hole was sharp. "Jesus," he whispers, and he grabs his dick, and the blood wells through his fingers. He has to shut his eyes. He can't look at what he did to himself.
He curls around himself, clutching, trying to stop the bleeding--but he can't, and if he moves it'll get worse, and the phone is in the other room.
"That looks bad." Joe's breath against the back of his head. He wants to swear at Joe but can't catch his breath.
He's going to die. The blood won't stop.
"You bitch. You found a more punk rock way to go than I did. You suck."
He closes his eyes and curls into himself. Oh God--the bar's on, nobody can get in--
--did he want anyone to get in? Because Joe's right, this is pretty goddamn punk rock right here. He grins helplessly at the wall, laughing through the pain.
Joe's lips press to the top of his head. Joe's hand pets his cheek in that gentle way he had when he was very, very stoned. He would curl up with Billy's head in his lap and pet until they both fell asleep, and Billy always thought that was heaven.
Joe's hand strokes his neck and the line of his shoulder. His chest presses to Billy's back, and Billy can't help but press back. It's a familiar place. Hurting with Joe.
Joe rolls him onto his back. He grimaces, breathing fast and shallow. Joe takes Billy's hands, pulls them away from his dick and sticks them in his mouth, and Billy can feel Joe's tongue against his fingertips and Joe's teeth clamped around the fingerbones. He doesn't open his eyes. He's scared of what he might see.
The phone in the living room rings. There's a strange voice on his machine saying, "This is Arthur Bowen--you don't know me, but you probably know my work. I'm writing a book on you and I'd be very grateful if you'd grant me an interview. My number is..." and Billy's laughing silently, just shaking a little.
Joe spits him out long enough to laugh. "What a great last chapter, Billiam." Joe's lips close in a kiss against his fingers.
end.