He lost himself entirely in her. "What do you want? Tell me how you like it?" She smacked him as she rode him, "Damn it Taylor, fuck me! Do it right!" And he spent the night smashing her against furniture listening to her laugh as he hurt her and feeling her crush him as they came.

She exhaled, "Taylor? Did you ever do that to Venisa?"

He rolled his eyes, maybe staying for the afterward had been a mistake. "Of course I did, I was 17. What kind of 17 year old wouldn't jump at the chance for a woman to make every kinky fantasy he's ever had come true? I did everything with that woman. Why wouldn't I?"

She toyed with her sheet, "I don't know, I guess I just wanted to be special."

"Look, no matter what you feel, you matter. To someone who's somewhere, you matter."

She drug the sheet from the bed and went to lay in the arm chair, "I only wanted to matter to one person."

"Zac, come to me."

"I can't."

"Zac, I want you to be with me."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't."

She approached him from behind, and peered towards him in the darkness. He'd become a small boy again, rocking himself in the corner. One armed hugged himself, and the other held a picture. "You don't need her."

"Yes I do."

"She wasn't good enough for you."

"I wasn't good enough for her."

"Damn it Zac, listen to me!" He turned to face her, "If you care about people you'll die. Zac, if you let your heart feel you'll die. Taylor will die, he's dying right now. And you'll die too if you let yourself care about a wench who denounced you and kicked your ass. She's not worth it, nobody's worth anything to you but you. That's how you need to live your life, or you'll never make it either."

Isaac stared across the coffee table, "How do you do that?"

"All it takes is concentration. You could do it." Taylor shrugged. He passed a spoon over to his brother and laughed as he attempted to balance it on his nose. "Well, then again, maybe you couldn't."

Isaac pouted, "I told you I didn't want to see you."

"Yet you came."

"I'm leaving, this is ridiculous."

"Ike sit down." The tone contained no brotherly love or playfulness. It was a comand in a deep, serious voice Taylor had never even come close to possessing.

"You can't order me around."

"Sit." He sat. "Look, you can't stay away from me because now you're involved. And you feel guitly now. I know you Ike, and I know that as soon is this is resolved you'll run away and forget about it, and that's fine. But I'm still your brother, and Zac's still your brother."

A stony Isaac stared blankly through Taylor, "No you're not. If you were my brother you'd be human. If you were my brother you wouldn't be fucking random girls. And if you were my brother then I wouldn't keep finding myself in cheap, trashy coffee houses in the whore-district of town!" He rose screaming, "YOU ARE NOT MY BROTHER!"

"IKE!"

"No, Taylor, I don't have a brother. And you're right as soon as this is over I'm going as far away from you as I can." He grabbed his jacket and left.

The waitress came and collected their coffee cups, "That was tough. I see fights all the time, but that was a bad one."

"Yeah," he hung his head.

"And he didn't even tip."

Taylor pushed a five into her hand, "Hey, I'm sorry about that. Would you like to take a walk?"



The Twentisecond Night

The Twentieth Night

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