Soured Milk, 10

Don had this friend. He's about Sven's age, maybe a little older, and he'd visit every other week. He'd come over on Friday afternoons, have lunch, hang out with Don for a while, and then leave. He didn't seem to like me all that much, and he always looked at me with such a strange expression; like a frown was lurking somewhere beneath the surface of his face and he had to repress it so much that it physically hurt.

He wasn't really all that handsome, this friend, definitely not as handsome as Sven (or, for that matter, Don in his heyday) but when he smiled, it would take over his entire face; melting into the brown of eyes like warm honey, and staining his cheeks and ears with a shade of red that I've only ever seen on giggling schoolgirls.

"What's the deal with you, anyway." he mumbled, almost to himself, the moment Don left the room to take a phone call. It was the first time he'd ever talked to me.

 "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he cleared his throat, not really whispering but it kind of felt like he was, "What are you doing with an old geezer like Don?"

I smiled, wondering why he seemed so distraught by the whole thing, "Oh, I don't know. He gives a mean fu—"

"You think you're fucking something, huh?" he barked, looking over his shoulders before continuing, "He's only using you, you know."

I shrugged, "What do I care? I'm using him, too."

"How?"

"I had this thing with his friend for a while, and then Don came in and decided he wanted me to himself, so Sven-"

"Sven?!" he stood up, almost leaping to the seat next to me, "You know Sven?"

"Yeah, like I said, we had a thing. Then Don took a liking to me and Sven gave me away. That's what I'm doing with an 'old geezer' like him, to piss off that asshole Sven. How do you know him anyway?"

"Oh, I don't. Not anymore, at least." he frowned, looking away from me, "How is he like?"

"Sven? He's an asshole."

"Listen," he started, turning to check if Don was still on his phone. This time he was definitely whispering, "We should get together sometime, yeah?"
 
"And do what?"

"Nothing special." he smiled in a sort of suggestive, filth-ridden way that made me feel like Sven himself was smiling at me, "What's your name, by the way?"

"Uh... Laurel?"

"Guess that would make me Apollo, then."

Soured Milk, 9

He said his name was Poseidon. An obvious lie, I know, but one that I let him keep. He said he once lived within a mighty sea of sins, and in the end, he was almost consumed by it, but just as he was about to surrender to his fate, something stirred within him; this violent need to fight, and he swam up to surface, and he rose above the sea. What once almost drowned him, now lied tepidly at his feet. Poseidon; master of the sea.

Now, of course, it was all absolute bullshit. I mean, surviving an overdose is hardly a triumph of will, plus that whole 'sea of sins' business sounded shady as hell, but he seemed adamant on having some awe-inspiring tale that I just fucking went along with it.

Speaking of going along with it, my time with Don was actually much better than I excepted it to be. Don was nothing like Sven; he was a master puppeteer, his manipulation was done from way afar, so far that you could barely even see the strings. That being said, he was no better than Sven. In fact, he was much worse, for at least Sven was honest about the piece of shit he was, while Don twisted and turned and spun himself into a lie just so he could go on pretending he was somehow above what Sven was.

"Don, can I ask you something?"

He peered at me through his reading glasses, "You're quite the inquisitive one, heh."

"What did you see in me?"

"What can I say, Lamm, you're such a scrumptious little thing."

"Don.." I purred in that sing-song voice he seemed to enjoy so damn much, "Please?"

"That Sven, he's not right in the head. Sometimes you just have to put him in place."

"That doesn't make any sense. How on earth was he being out of place? And what does this have to do with him, anyway?"

He sighed and shook his head, "You don't understand the situation."

"No shit! I think that's why I'm asking you to fucking explain it."

"Lamm," he put his hand on my shoulder, and I could tell from the expression on his face that he was going to do that patronizing shit he does whenever he thinks I'm acting 'out of control', "Calm down, okay? Calm down. You're being hysterical again, Lamm, calm d—"

I don't know what compelled me to do such a thing, but next thing I knew I was staring at Don's spit-splattered face, and I burst out laughing.

Don, however, wasn't the least bit amused, and even though I've always known he wasn't as harmless as he liked me to believe, I never, never, thought he'd be capable of doing what he did next.

"Take off your clothes and go to the bathroom," he calmly ordered, wiping the spit off his face and walking into the kitchen, "And if I hear another word from you, I'll cut off your tongue, too."