“Wow, what a fucking faggot,” Wes laughs.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not that word. That word does not define me. I am a creature who embraces God’s love and aims to spread it across the world.”

“You’re trying to spread some of that vampire boy’s sodomite semen all over your body,” West takes a seat on my dresser.

“Stop saying stuff like that,” I scream at him.

“Why? Are you scared mommy and daddy might hear that you like penis? They’re not here. Wait, are you afraid of Hell? Is that it.”

“I’m not going to Hell.”

“Because you’re living in Hell already. People already know you’re a homo and you sit around masturbating all day. All fucking day. You literally, beat the skin off your dick sometimes. You’ve watched more porn than most people have TV. It doesn’t even take porn; you see a cute guy in class and you’re ready to join the one-man firing squad. How many guys have you actually slept with? Two, then you just decided you’d pray away the gay because pastor said it was wrong?”

“I told you, I’m not gay,” I yell at Wes.

He hops off the dresser and crosses the room until we’re eye to eye. His eyes look just like mine, but filled with evil. I try to look away from him but he takes my chin in his hand and forces me to stare at him. I try to break free but he’s too strong.

“Faggot, fag, homo, queer, you’re stuck on these words being hateful, these words cut you so deep,” he pauses and lets me go. “so, fucking deep. But they aren’t what’s hurting you. It’s the fact that you’re hiding who you really are. You’d rather live in the shadows, afraid of going out and living your life. You sit there, bitching and moaning about other gays living their best life, because you can’t. What really makes you mad, is you don’t even hide it good. The moment your mind drifts you start to switch when you walk, you accidentally catch a peek at the urinal. Did you get kicked out of the gym because you were in the locker room staring? Maybe if you just told everyone you were gay, you’d stop being such a creepy little pervert.”

“I’m not gay!”

“Why do you keep yelling? They’re going to think you’re crazy. Crazier.”

I roll off the bed, trying to avoid Wes’ grasp. I start to dig through the side drawer. I just need my medication. He doesn’t think I’m fun when I take my medication; he’ll abandon me again, just like every other time. I used to think he was fun to be around, but he just got more controlling as I grew older. My medication made me feel and act like I was just watching from inside my own head. It made me boring to be around too, and that kept Wes away. But any time I stopped taking my medication, I felt like me again even with all the issues that brought. Sooner or later, Wes would pop up again. Moving all the way to Minnesota was part of getting away from him. I don’t know how he found me, but I’ll probably need to move again. Did I not bring any medication with me? Why would I leave it behind? I guess I thought he wouldn’t find me here.

“Stop running, just follow my lead. I’ll have your life set up exactly how you want it,” Wes taunts me as I run to my bathroom.

I rummage through the medicine cabinet. None of this stuff is mine, it probably belongs to Kareem’s last roommate. It’s all allergy medicine and cough syrup, none of this will help me. Did he kill his last roommate too? Fuck, I might have some pills in my luggage. I rush to the closet and search the duffel bags and suitcases I moved in here with, nothing.

“Choir boy,” Wes pauses to laugh. “That’s funny, you’re going to be the closeted choir director. Probably neglect a nice Christian girl. Put all that self-hate into pumping her full of baby batter so you can prove you aren’t gay.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I step into Wes’ face.

“Do you know what divine retribution is,” he whispers in my ear while rubbing my shoulders from behind, much more subdued now.

“Yeah, I know. I live in fear of it. The ultimate punishment.”

“No,” he licks my ear, sending chills through my body. “Divine retribution isn’t just the ultimate punishment. You can survive punishment,” he puts one hand around my waist and another on my throat before rubbing his head on the side of my neck. “Divine retribution is doom, there is nothing else afterward. Why do you fear it?”

“Because I’m weak,” my body feels like putty in his hand.

The hand on my waist moves lower, my body quivers as it grasps at my penis through my shorts “you think Kareem is your divine retribution. You think you’re being punished for hating yourself, one of God’s children. You don’t have to lie, I know how you think. Isn’t that right?”

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“Yes,” I struggle to get the words out despite my mouth being wide open.

“Then let me lead the way, let me find out.”

“You can have whatever you want.”

“Good,” Wes lets me go and pushes me to the floor.

I gather my composure, stand up and straighten out my clothes as he leaves the room. I follow Wes down the stairs and into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and pulls out a pitcher of red liquid that Kareem said not to touch. He spits into the glass and laughs.

“What are you doing,” I ask.

“You said, I could do whatever I want,” Wes smiles.

He takes his finger and swirls the spit into the red liquid. As he pulls his finger out, I can see the liquid is thick, and we both look confused. Wes sniffs the finger, scowls as if he’s thinking before shoving the finger into his own mouth. He seems surprised as he pulls his finger out.

“What is it,” I ask eagerly, almost like watching him when we were kids again.

“It’s blood. That nigga really drinks blood,” he puts the pitcher back in the fridge.

“Can you not use that word, I find it really holds us back as a people.”

“You’re more concerned about me using the word nigga than the fact that your roommate is drinking blood? You really must want to fuck him. Or, you like getting fucked right?”

“Stop, this has gone too far, you need to leave,” I shout at him.

“I’ll leave when we’re done,” Wes heads towards the door leading to the basement.

“Don’t go in there.”

“You wanted to learn if he’s a killer right?”

“Please stop.”

Wes opens the door, “he might not be a serial killer, he doesn’t even lock the door,” Wes laughs as he walks down the stairs.

I’ve never been in Kareem’s room before, I thought it’d be a dungeon with moldy cinderblock walls or and chains. There’re cinderblock walks but they’re painted gray. Two of the walls features a mural covering their entire surface. I recognize some of the faces and scenes depicted. It takes a second before I piece together they’re all from different movies. His room is also pretty neat and well kept. I guess I’m surprised because he’s always lounging around in shorts or sweats, not really doing anything. He has a sloppy demeanor, but he isn’t one. That’s nice to know.

“Hey, look at this,” Wes calls me over to a wooden desk.

There’s some sketchbooks that I flip through, some interesting drawings. A few of them demonic looking, but others are kind of cute. Some of the pages feature poetry, or attempts to be poetic, but most seem like camera directions, or angles a camera would capture. I’m not sure, they just look more like diagrams than sketches. A few composition notebooks look to have handwritten scripts in them. I’m not sure if he wants to be a director, a writer or a tattoo artists. I could help him type up the scripts one day, maybe get a film deal.

Wes sighs, “you’re missing the big part,” he yanks open a drawer “boom baby,” he points out a gun with a few bullets rolling around in the drawer.

“What is that,” the words leave my mouth before I can think.

“A gun, you idiot. The better question is why a vampire needs a gun. He might be a serial killer, but he ain’t a vampire.” Wes takes the gun from the drawer, and aims at me, closing one eye and staring down the sights.

I smack his hand away, “stop playing with that.”

He tosses the gun back in the drawer and heads to a basket of clothes in the corner before rummaging through it. I focus on the poetry; it isn’t well written and doesn’t seem to have an extensive vocabulary. It’s honestly less poetry, and more of a badly written narrative.

“Catch,” Wes calls out.

I swat at the air and manage to catch what he threw at me. It’s a pair of Kareem’s boxer briefs. I toss them onto the ground which causes Wes to laugh. He picks them up and takes a deep sniff of them before smiling at me. He looks into the underwear and nods with approval.

“No skid marks,” he laughs.

“Stop that.”

“Hey, this is what you wanted right,” he holds the underwear up to my face as I look away. “You wanted some hot, vampire, dick,” he laughs. “At least you can get a smell whiff of the sausage and eggs.”

“I don’t want to.”

I feel my legs leave the ground and my heart begins to race as I’m dropped to the floor. I don’t know how he did it, but he's looking down on me now. I struggle as he shoves the underwear in face, demanding I smell it. He laughs when I finally get away from him.

“You know what you should do,” Wes asks.

“Leave.”

“No, you should do what you always do,” he makes a masturbation motion with his hand.

“I’m not doing that.”

“Go ahead, I can tell that you’re turned on. Hell, I can see that you’re turned on.”

“Stop.”

“Why don’t you do something about it? Won’t have many chances to do that kind of thing here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why? Because I’m watching? I’ll close my eyes,” he covers his eyes with his hand, then peeks through. “Just do it or that tiny terror is going to be throbbing with pain all day,” he places a hand on my knee.

“Stop,” he starts to move his hand up my shorts, “what if I get caught?”

“Then you’ll get your answer. Either he’ll fuck you or you kill you. If you don’t, he won’t do either. Let’s be real, I want it just as much as you, but you’re holding me back,” Wes uses a free hand to place the underwear over my face again.

My phone begins to vibrate and a bell starts to ring. I have church tonight, Bible class, I can’t be doing this. I try to push Wes off me and stand up but he’s strong. I manage to break free, tossing the underwear away and towards the pile.

“Where are you going?”

“Church.”

“Can’t we finish here,” he asks.

“We’re done. You should have never come here.”

“I cam here because you wanted me here, you needed me here,” he stands up and adjust his shorts.

“I don’t need you and I don’t want you here.”

“You do, even if you don’t know it yet,” he pauses and picks up Kareem’s underwear. “Hold on to these for me, we’ll finish later.”

“We’re not doing anything later.”

“Hopefully, we’re going to be doing Kareem, together,” he laughs.

“Stop saying stuff like that.”

“I’ve seen him, he’s kind of hot.”

“Shut up,” I yell at him.

He takes the opportunity to kiss me, putting his tongue deep in my mouth, “go to church, but we’ve got to make up for lost time later.”

I watch as he puts Kareem’s underwear into his pocket and walks up the stairs. Crap, I’m letting him control me again, lead me to bad situations. I’m bigger than this. I’m old enough that I shouldn’t be falling victim to peer pressure. I need to figure out how to get rid of him after church. If not, Kareem might be willing to kill him for me. I’m sure he doesn’t want a second roommate anyway, even if the house is big enough.