Neri

On the Run

The bedsheets are bleached thin and smell like someone else’s come. Thomas has been lying on his back for an hour, counting the cracks in the ceiling plaster, until sweat pools in the arch of his lower back and glues his thighs together. He knows better than to think he’ll get any sleep tonight, or any night. The air conditioner is a broken, buzzing placebo: its only function is to move hot air from one end of the room to the other. He’s been holed up in this room for three days, the longest he’s dared to stay in one place since the contract went out. He’s naked, because clothes make him feel like he’s still alive, like he’s not just a body waiting for disposal. The pistol is under the second pillow, but he doesn’t touch it. The only certainty is that his time is up, and he finds himself surprised by the relief that comes with knowing he can finally stop running.

The desert night is a haze through the smeared window, a feverish glow leaking in between the slats of cheap plastic blinds. Thomas thinks it’s a perfect place to die. No one knows he’s here except the one man who’s coming to kill him, and for the last week he’s found himself thinking, over and over, of Daniel: his partner, his executioner, the last man he’d ever want to see but also the only one he needs. Daniel with the long, wet tongue and the pitbull jaw and the scar that cuts across his eyebrow like a fence wire. Daniel who could fuck and kill and laugh in the same breath. Daniel who’s going to walk through the door sometime tonight and blow Thomas’s brains out, or maybe do something better. Or worse.

He runs a hand across his ribs, counting each one, skin humming with dehydration and adrenaline. He thinks about the showers—there’s been three since he checked in, all ice cold, all futile. Each time, he watches the water bead on his skin and imagines it’s sweat, or blood, or come. He can’t remember the last time he was clean. He wonders if Daniel will care.

The cheap clock radio blinks 3:12 in sickly green. He remembers Daniel’s hands, the way they could close around a man’s throat and squeeze until the tongue bulged out like a slug from a shell. The first time they killed together, Daniel shot the target through the throat and then fucked him before the body cooled. Thomas had watched, a little disgusted but more intrigued, and then Daniel had pulled him in and made him do the same. He thinks about that night often, mostly because he knows it’s the first domino in the line that led him here, naked and waiting to die in a furnace of a room, cock half-hard and brain full of bad static.

The sheets stick to his ass and he peels them away. He thinks about calling out, just to test his voice, but the silence feels holy and he doesn’t want to break it. The night is so thick it feels like a weight pressing down on the building, the kind of pressure that precedes a dust storm or a shooting. He remembers the rhythm of Daniel’s breath in his ear, the way Daniel would spit on his cock before jamming it in, no preamble, just a surge and burn and a grin sharp enough to split a tooth.

He wonders if it’s weird that he’s more scared of the anticipation than the killing itself. Thomas has never been much for reflection, but he’s had a month of uninterrupted silence to think about his choices, and each night the same conclusion echoes up from his chest: he is going to die, and Daniel will be the one to do it, and that’s the only ending that makes any sense.

He palms his cock, stroking it with absentminded patience. His whole body is buzzing, a live wire stretched between the past and the next hour. He wonders if Daniel will be gentle, if he’ll try to make it good for both of them, or if he’ll just slit Thomas’s throat and fuck the corpse like he did with the last guy. It’s funny, Thomas thinks: there’s a nobility in being killed by someone who knows you, who’s seen you at your best and your absolute worst. He wonders if he’ll be allowed a last word, or if Daniel will fuck it out of him first.

He closes his eyes and listens to his own breathing, slow and thick. He drifts for a few minutes, somewhere between sleep and waking, and dreams of Daniel’s tongue licking sweat off the hollow of his chest. He dreams of the sharp stink of gun oil and motel disinfectant. He dreams of dying with his cock inside Daniel, or Daniel inside him, both of them shooting at the same time, one with a bullet, the other with a pulse of hot semen.

When he wakes, it’s because something has shifted in the air. A footstep outside the door. Thomas sits up, not bothering with the sheets, not bothering with the gun. If it’s Daniel, he won’t need the weapon. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter. He wants to die with his eyes open and his cock hard, and he wants Daniel to see what he’s done to him.

He spreads his legs a little, palms the sweat off his chest, and smiles into the darkness. Soon, he thinks. Very soon.

The sound is like a wolf snapping a bone: the latch disengages, metal scraping cheap wood. Daniel stands in the doorframe, broad and heavier than Thomas remembers, but still with that same soft-bastard smile, the one that means he’s already judged and sentenced you. He’s got a pistol in his right hand, lowered but not idle, and his left is braced against the doorjamb, propping him up like he owns the room, the building, the town.

Thomas feels his mouth go dry. He pushes himself up on the mattress, bare ass stuck to the sticky sheet, and props himself on his elbows so his chest is open and his cock is plainly visible. He wants Daniel to see the effect, wants him to know there’s no fear left, only anticipation.

“‘Bout time,” Thomas says, voice a rung lower than usual. “You were always late.”

Daniel grins, teeth white and sharp. “Clock’s not my problem anymore, is it?”

“Guess not.” Thomas swings his legs off the bed, makes no move to cover himself. “You here to do it, or just stand there with your dick in your hand?”

Daniel looks down, amused, as if checking. “Guess I’m ready either way.” He steps in, closes the door behind him with a deliberate click. Now it’s just the two of them, gun and cock, hard edges and unfinished business.

Thomas studies him. Daniel’s put on a few pounds, but it’s the kind of bulk that sits well on a man: he’s all heavy muscle under the denim and sweat-stiff t-shirt. The scar above his eye is still angry, still pulsing red when he’s pissed or horny. Right now, Thomas can’t tell which one it is.

“So,” Daniel says, “you run out of places to hide?”

“Didn’t see the point anymore,” Thomas answers. “We both know how this ends.”

“Not with you on your feet,” Daniel says, tone flat. “But you look good. All things considered.”

Thomas stretches, deliberately, so the curve of his cock is plain against his thigh. “I had to give you something to look at,” he says. “Wouldn’t want you to get bored.”

Daniel smirks, steps further into the room. He’s got the gun trained loosely on Thomas’s chest. “You happy it’s me?”

Thomas laughs. “Who else could do it? Fuck, I’d be disappointed if it was anyone but you.”

Daniel’s eyes flick to the window, the bed, the bathroom, cataloging escape routes and hiding places, just like always. “Funny thing,” he says, “I missed this. The way you always make it easy. The way you never beg.”

Thomas grins. “You’d only make me anyway.”

The silence is thick, but it’s not awkward. It’s electric, charged with everything unsaid from the last three years. Daniel stares, drinks in the sight of Thomas splayed and sweating on the bed. “You ever think about it?” Daniel asks, voice barely above a whisper. “What it’d be like?”

Thomas shrugs, but his heart thumps once, hard. “Every night since you left.”

Daniel steps closer, so close the muzzle of the pistol is a breath from Thomas’s nipple. “You know what I like about you?” he says. “You never play at being a victim.”

Thomas swallows. “You like killing men who fight back. Men who can take it.”

Daniel smiles, wolfish. “I like killing men who make it worth my time.”

They look at each other. Thomas’s cock has gone from half-mast to urgent, pulsing need. He glances down at himself, then back up at Daniel’s face. “You ever think about fucking me before you do it?” Thomas asks, not a hint of shame in his voice.

Daniel doesn’t answer, but the tip of his tongue flicks out to wet his lips. His left hand, now free, drifts to the hem of his shirt. “You know I always do,” he says, and now the gun is resting on the bedside table, still in reach but less important than what’s about to happen.

“Show me,” Thomas says. “If I’m going out, I want to see you first.”

Daniel hesitates, just for a second, scanning the room again, the corners, the shadows, the seams of the cheap motel furniture. Thomas recognizes the look—it’s the old caution, the paranoia that kept them alive for three years. But it’s also pride, and a flicker of something almost tender.

Then Daniel sets the gun down and pulls off his shirt. The skin is as perfect as Thomas remembers: tanned, scattered with old scars and a faint tattoo on his right pec, the one that looks like a broken set of handcuffs. His abs flex when he moves, a ripple of hard muscle. He kicks off his shoes, pops the button on his jeans, and drags them down, no hurry. He’s wearing nothing underneath, and his cock springs free, huge and angry and flushed dark at the head.

Thomas can’t help himself. “Christ, Daniel. I never saw a man like you.”

Daniel grins, pleased, and pulls the jeans all the way off, tossing them aside. For a moment, he stands there, naked, letting Thomas drink him in. His balls hang heavy, cock already arching toward Thomas like it’s hungry. He puts a hand on it, strokes himself once, slow and deliberate.

“Last request?” Daniel asks, voice soft now, almost fond.

“Don’t miss,” Thomas says, and means it.

They watch each other for a moment, neither willing to blink. Then Daniel steps forward, one hand on his cock, the other ready for whatever comes next.

Thomas expects Daniel to climb onto him right away, but Daniel just stands there, cock in hand, looking down at him like he’s studying a piece of meat he’s about to carve. The stare is so clinical it almost stings. Then Daniel reaches for the gun again, lifts it with the easy grace of muscle memory, and levels it at Thomas’s chest. He’s not angry or even particularly aroused—he’s perfectly at home, perfectly himself, as if nudity and violence are Daniel’s natural states.

“You know,” Daniel says, “if anyone else tried to go out like this, I’d call it cowardice.”

Thomas props himself up on his elbows, grins. “But for me?”

“For you, it’s art.”

They both laugh, and the tension breaks, but only a little. Daniel runs the muzzle of the gun across his chest, tracing lines in the sheen of sweat. The cold metal draws goosebumps in its wake. Thomas is surprised at how much it turns him on.

He says, “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? To be killed by a man who’s stronger than you. A real man.”

Daniel nods, serious. “Better than dying slow. Better than what the boss has planned.”

Thomas looks Daniel in the eye. “You ever regret it?”

“Only when I have to get blood out of denim,” Daniel replies, glancing at the heap of clothes on the floor. “Otherwise? No.”

They fall into a rhythm, talking like it’s any other night in a shit motel, like they aren’t about to cross a line you don’t come back from.

“Remember the guy in Tucson?” Thomas asks.

“The skinny banker?” Daniel grins. “You had to hold him down, he was squirming so bad.”

“He came right as you pulled the trigger,” Thomas says, and even now he’s half hard just thinking about it. “I think that’s when I started wanting this. Wanting you.”

Daniel’s lips twist. “I always knew you’d be the one to ask.”

Thomas glances at the gun, the cock, the eyes that are impossible to read. “How do you want to do it?”

Daniel is slow to answer. He steps closer, plants a knee on the bed, pushes the gun against Thomas’s ribs. “We got all night,” he says. “I want to see you get desperate first.”

Thomas grins, but his hands are shaking. He palms his cock, gives it a lazy tug. “You want me to beg?”

“I want you to make it real,” Daniel says. “I want you to mean it.”

For a long moment, Thomas is quiet, just breathing, just feeling the way the gun digs into his skin and how Daniel’s free hand finds the base of his cock. He thinks about all the men who died like this, hard and gasping and too stubborn to admit they liked it. He thinks about how Daniel fucked half of them, sometimes with the bullet still in, sometimes after. There’s a twisted beauty in it. There’s no room for shame.

“You remember the ex-cop?” Thomas asks, voice thick.

Daniel laughs, low and mean. “The one who tried to choke me out? He came before I even finished.”

Thomas nods. “You fucked him so hard, you split him open. You remember that?”

Daniel’s hand tightens on Thomas’s cock. “I remember.”

The tension is different now, not the kind that makes you want to run, but the kind that makes you want to surrender. Thomas opens his legs wider, lets Daniel line the gun up under his chin. He wants this, more than he’s wanted anything.

Daniel strokes the side of his face, gentle for a moment. “You ready?” he asks.

Thomas nods, unable to speak. His heart is beating so loud it drowns out the whir of the busted air conditioner, the buzz of the dying lightbulb overhead.

Daniel says, “Then show me how much you want it.”

And Thomas does, rocking his hips up, pressing himself into Daniel’s hand, into the gun, into whatever comes next.

Thomas grinds against Daniel’s hand, but even now, with the muzzle of a pistol under his chin, he’s embarrassed to say what he wants. Old habits die hard. He averts his eyes, tries to laugh it off. “You gonna shoot me first, or after?”

Daniel tilts his head, considering. “I could do either. But you sound like you got a preference.”

Thomas swallows, lips dry. “I just thought… maybe this time, you’d do it different.”

Daniel lifts the gun away, just a fraction, enough to make the absence of its pressure feel like a loss. “You want something else, you gotta ask.”

Thomas tries to spit out the words, but they get stuck in his throat. He looks at the ceiling. He looks at Daniel’s cock. He looks at the gun, then away. “I always wondered what it would be like. With you. Like those other guys.”

Daniel smirks. “You want me to fuck you before I finish you off?”

Thomas closes his eyes, ashamed that it’s so obvious. “Yeah,” he breathes, just above a whisper.

Daniel puts the gun down on the nightstand, the metal clunk echoing in the stifling room. “I’ll use it after,” he promises. Then he straddles Thomas, hands rough and hungry, palms sliding down Thomas’s sides to grip his hips.

Thomas lets out a shuddering breath. He’s never done this, not like this, not with a man he respected. He thinks about all the times they laughed about it, made jokes, called each other names. All of that falls away now. It’s just skin, and sweat, and the knowledge that this is the last thing he’ll ever feel.

Daniel bends over him, beard scratchy against the nape of Thomas’s neck. “You know I’m not gentle,” he says.

“I know,” Thomas says, but there’s relief in his voice. “I don’t want you to be.”

He rolls onto his stomach, heart pounding so hard it rattles his ribs. Daniel lines up behind him, cock slick with anticipation. Thomas braces himself, fists clenching the bedspread. He can feel Daniel’s hand at the small of his back, holding him steady. It’s as much for control as it is for comfort.

He feels the first pressure, the blunt head splitting him open, and it’s worse than he expected, better than he hoped. Daniel isn’t slow, isn’t careful; he presses in all at once, making Thomas gasp, making his toes curl against the greasy mattress.

“Good?” Daniel asks, and it’s almost mocking.

“Better than a bullet,” Thomas manages, sweat running down his forehead and pooling in his eyes.

Daniel laughs, thrusting in deeper, the rhythm brutal and perfect. Thomas bites the pillow, muffling his moans. He wants to last, wants to feel this as long as he can before Daniel makes good on his promise.

He pushes back, meeting each thrust, the pain dissolving into heat, the shame gone. This is what he always wanted, even if he never admitted it.

Daniel’s hands tighten on his hips. “You always were a stubborn bastard,” he says, voice ragged. “Should’ve done this years ago.”

Thomas can’t speak, just grunts, just rides the waves of sensation. He knows it won’t last, knows how these things go. But for now, he’s alive, more alive than he’s ever been.

Daniel’s rhythm is relentless, piston-like, each thrust sending a fresh spike of pain straight through Thomas’s spine. He’s been fucked before, rough and ugly, but never by a man built like Daniel, never with this much weight, this much power behind every move. It feels like he’s being impaled, torn apart, and there’s a sick, wild part of him that loves it.

At first he tries to keep quiet, but the sounds keep escaping him: grunts, gasps, little animal noises that bounce off the yellowed walls. The pain crests and breaks, settles into a raw, throbbing heat. Daniel leans forward, plants a palm between Thomas’s shoulder blades, pinning him to the mattress. “You gonna tap out?” Daniel pants, voice thick with effort.

“Fuck you,” Thomas spits into the pillow, but the words are muffled, broken by a moan.

Daniel’s laugh is pure joy, deep and gloating. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Thomas tries to twist away, but Daniel clamps down, riding him harder. It’s humiliation, but also a fucked-up mercy: Daniel won’t let him leave his own body until the very end. The idea makes Thomas’s cock twitch, even as his vision blurs with sweat and pain.

Daniel bends down, lips brushing Thomas’s ear. “You want me to choke you while I do it?”

Thomas hesitates. The thought makes his dick pulse, makes his guts squirm with equal parts fear and longing. “Yeah,” he rasps. “Do it. But wait till you’re gonna come.”

“Always the romantic,” Daniel says, and Thomas can hear the grin in his voice.

The next few minutes are just motion, noise, the slap of skin and the animal grunts of two men racing toward a finish line. Daniel’s hand wraps around Thomas’s throat, tight but not yet suffocating, just a promise of what’s to come. He rams in deeper, splits Thomas so wide it feels like his guts are about to come out.

At some point, Thomas starts babbling, words he doesn’t remember thinking, doesn’t remember meaning. “Fucking bull,” he snarls. “You can’t even get it all in, can you? Asshole.”

Daniel growls, bites his neck, pushes deeper. “Watch me, bitch.”

The words work. Thomas clenches, shudders, nearly loses consciousness as the pain overloads everything else. Then, slowly, it starts to change: every thrust sends a jolt of pleasure, sick and wrong but so fucking good. The bed creaks under their combined weight. Thomas’s cock is leaking onto the sheets, and every move milks more out of him.

“You ever kill anyone like this?” Thomas asks, voice thin and shaky.

Daniel slows, savoring the question. “Not like this,” he says. “No one worth it.”

Thomas barks a laugh. “Glad to be your first.”

Daniel’s grip tightens. “I’m gonna miss you, you know.”

“Bullshit,” Thomas says, but the warmth in Daniel’s voice is real.

They stay like that, grinding and thrusting and saying things they never would’ve said in the daylight. It’s ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s the only way this could end.

Daniel’s hand closes around Thomas’s throat, for real this time. Thomas chokes, stars blooming at the edge of his vision. “Do it,” he gasps. “Fucking do it, you coward.”

Daniel snarls, “You want it so bad, beg for it.”

Thomas fights for air, sees the blackness creeping in. “Kill me, you fuck. Please. Fucking—please”

Daniel hammers in, deeper than ever, and Thomas knows it’s coming, knows this is what he was made for.

Thomas is somewhere between agony and bliss, every nerve ending raw and sparking. He’s gasping for air, seeing nothing but black and flashes of white as Daniel’s cock jackhammers him open. He wants to scream but his throat is already bruised from Daniel’s hand.

Daniel’s breath is harsh in his ear. “You feel that?” he pants, grinding in deep. “You feel me inside you?”

Thomas tries to snarl but it comes out a choked whine. “I feel it, you fuck. I hope you—”

Daniel cuts him off, slamming in so hard Thomas’s hips go numb. “Gonna finish you now,” Daniel says, voice ragged. “Gonna fill you up and squeeze the life out of you.”

Thomas bites the mattress, eyes rolling back, but he’s still in it, still fighting. “Do it, pussy. Bet you can’t even—”

Daniel clamps both hands around Thomas’s throat and starts to squeeze. At first it’s just pressure, then it’s fire, then there’s nothing but the thudding of his pulse and the sensation of Daniel’s cock battering his insides.

“Harder,” Thomas tries to say, but it’s just spit and gurgle.

Daniel laughs, cruel and sweet. “Always the tough guy.”

The blackness creeps in, edges the world in velvet. Thomas’s legs kick out, instinct fighting to keep him alive even as his mind is desperate for oblivion. Daniel pounds him, squeezing tighter, and Thomas feels the moment when Daniel’s cock swells, the head stretching him wide, hotter than before.

He’s dying, he knows it, but there’s something beautiful about the timing: the way the orgasm and the asphyxiation blend, the way his whole body lights up and then shuts down, all in the same instant.

Daniel doesn’t let go, not even when Thomas goes slack, not even when the piss floods the sheets and soaks the mattress. He keeps squeezing, keeps grinding, until he’s emptied himself and Thomas’s pulse is nothing but a memory.

When it’s done, Daniel lets go. The room is silent, except for the stutter of the air conditioner and the ticking of the bedside clock.

But Daniel’s not done. He reaches out, grabs Thomas’s chin, and twists hard, snapping the neck with a sharp, wet pop. He doesn’t need to, but it feels right, feels final.

He lets Thomas’s head drop to the pillow and stands, breathing hard, covered in sweat and the stink of sex and death. He looks at what he’s done and feels something close to pride.

The man went out exactly the way he wanted. Not many can say that.

Daniel stands over the body, hands on his hips, and lets out a long, slow breath. The bed is a disaster: wet spot spreading under Thomas’s hips, the sheets bunched and streaked with shit and blood, the air so thick with sex and death that even the motel stench can’t cover it. Daniel grins, almost tender, and pats Thomas on the ass one last time before heading for the bathroom.

He washes himself at the sink, scrubbing his cock clean with gritty motel soap and icy water. There are flakes of dried blood under his fingernails. He rubs them together until the skin is raw. He studies himself in the mirror: eyes rimmed red, stubble thick on his chin, bruises blooming along his shoulders where Thomas tried to fight him off. He looks alive, more alive than he’s felt in years.

When he’s clean, he goes back to the bedroom. He grabs Thomas by the shoulder and flips him over, the corpse floppy and boneless now. The head lolls at an unnatural angle, jaw slack, eyes half-open and glassy. Daniel props Thomas up against the pillows, arranging the arms neatly at his sides. The cock is still half-hard, a small miracle, a tribute to how deep the want went.

Daniel steps up to the bed, aims, and lets loose a long stream of piss straight into Thomas’s open mouth. It overflows, dribbles down the chin and onto the chest. Daniel laughs, loud and genuine, and gives the body a final salute.

He dresses without hurry, slides the gun into the waistband of his jeans, and pulls on his shirt. He stands in the doorway for a moment, looking back at the scene. It’s perfect. No one else could have done it so clean, so right.

Daniel flips off the light and leaves, closing the door behind him. There’s nothing left to say.