[cw for suicidal ideation]

*

Everything is the church. Everything is Lorenzo's house. Everything is a winding dusty road that goes on forever on a 100 degree day, baking me alive, limping, until I'm back at Lorenzo's house, until I'm back at the church, back at my old home, until I'm forced to open the fucking door

*

So this is new. I, uh. Literally opened my eyes and I was in a place I'd never been before. Easy to do when you're on a tour, I know, but I mean I was just sitting on a metal barrier on the side of a fucking road, nails digging into my shoulders, fresh puke splattered on the ground in front of me, bile-taste in my mouth (thankfully none on my clothes or in my hair). I had no idea where, what fucking direction to even start walking back in, what time it was, what day it was, nothing (the dirt road the fucking dirt road). There was enough of a median for me to collapse into a terrified ball and just start laughing and hyperventilating like a spaz for a whole minute, at least. Thankfully it didn't take TOO long for someone to drive by, and I was able to flag them down and get directions. Also thankfully, I wasn't far from the hotel. Did I just... sleep walk? Down the fucking road? And nobody saw? Or was I technically "awake"? The latter might be even worse to think about, honestly. It means I'm probably going even crazier and that's basically the end of my life right there. I'm hoping I just took a little too much, or drank a little too much at the same time, or something. But jesus fucking christ.

*

Felt alright enough to ask Jeff if anybody'd seen me leave and he said "Did anyone SEE you? I think everyone HEARD you, too." I asked him to elaborate ('everyone' didn't include Nathan, thank god). Apparently I'd gotten into an argument with Walt. Or that's what's assumed. Jeff didn't hear anything from Walt, he (and some others) just heard me scream at him about how he'd "ruined me" and "ripped my heart from my body" because he was "mad I wouldn't let him pimp me out to the highest fucking bidder in every city", that "this is all just a fucking game to him and I was sick-and-fucking-tired of being blamed by everyone for being forced to play the game he was playing", how I'm "not going to be his fucking whore anymore no matter how much he wants it". "Also, you called him a fat fuck. Among other things." Well, that part's as honest as the rest of it. --Soon after all that, though, I left in a panic, shoved Jeff away from me when he tried to stop me, yelled at him and at everyone around me to leave me the fuck alone[103].

I'm used to far more serious things triggering that sort of panic cascade than simply being in Walter's presence, and even then, while time and detail are always blurry during those moments, I usually don't lose ALL memory of what happened during/before. Of course, he's done quite a fucking bit to me over the years. I'm not too embarrassed at what I actually said to him, because it's more or less true. I just hate that he saw me explode like that, that it happened so publicly (might have to call Lou-- well, I will, just in case), and that he knows he's capable of doing that to me. Of ALL people, Walter especially can't know how close I am to losing it all. How close it all is to not mattering anyway.

PS: I also don't remember writing that last entry before this one at all. Not the time, not the words, none of it. Great. I mean, I get WHY I wrote it. But I still hate that I can't remember having done so.

*

Everything really is starting to turn against me fully, now. Speed included. Getting those awful urges to pick at myself lately, and I've just been trying to find things to fiddle around with in my hands, or squeeze, until the feeling passes, but it doesn't always work. I've been leaving my jackets on for shows for longer and longer times, even though it cooks me. Having something there makes me feel mostly-alright on stage. And I'm holding my mic/wire on stage, anyway, which already helps. Singing’s been iffy. Some nights better than others, some far better than others, some so difficult I want to kill myself or Walter or both of us at the end of a set, can barely look Nate or anyone else in the eye but especially not him. Even if I don't kill myself at the end of this, I’m dying a little more each day and there’s less and less I can do about it. Not even Nathan's playing is enough sometimes anymore. I’m dying a little each day and Walter still wants to add more dates to this fucking thing, wants to kill me as much as possible before I can even think of finishing the job myself. Maybe that’s what the screaming was about, recently. Still don’t know why it’d make me panic that badly, though.

Been having to remind myself to eat-- one too many people asked if I was feeling okay/if I was sick, including poor Gabe, and I absolutely don't want to give him or Mike reason to worry about me. Still just tastes like nothing so it's all hard to swallow, sometimes almost makes me gag, but I know I have to try. Might just blend up peanut butter and some other shit into a smoothie sort of thing and chug it before that gag reflex can kick in.

I must admit that leaning into ruin is a lot more interestingly dramatic when you're young enough to properly weather the consequences. 37 is not the new 27, I'm sorry to say-- in case anyone in the void was wondering. And especially not the 37 I'm living. Makeup-- just the simplest stuff, light foundation and subtle contouring, a little brown eyeliner and white on the waterline, a little brow shaping-- helps a bit with how haggard the lack of sleep's made me look (tho Nathan never seems to mind regardless... ugh. stupid). At least, on cooler nights. Summertime, forget it. But that's long gone now, thank god. It's funny, there's so little of me left and even less of Julie and Marjan left, but we still have it in us to be a vain little queen. It's almost nice to have something, even if it's a not very nice something. The self-annihilating drive that kicked into high gear last year is either slowing or has found something it'd like to spare. Or Julie survived it out of pure spite and stubbornness. HA. It's probably that-- it's something that anchors us together (that, our flair for the dramatic, our irrepressibly broad and deep appreciation of/for men despite them being just as likely to hurt us...). Walt hates it about us. He either wants us to be a complacent spoiled child like Nate or an anxious cowed one like Jeffrey. And he especially doesn't want a son that refuses to act like one (and in oh-so-many ways~!). But we'll outlast everything he throws at us. We'll outlast the plague, too, and I KNOW he'll be disappointed about that, the poor thing. We'll outlast everything-- well, everything but myself. But that's always the way it was going to go. It's better that way anyway.

I have a show in a few hours!! That's so fucking funny. Maybe someone can kill me there. That'd be a laugh riot. Maybe even a real riot. I can out myself and get bludgeoned or stabbed or shot to death (remembering that one John Waters/Divine movie line-- WHO WANTS TO DIE FOR ART?). I can fling myself out into the crowd like a piece of meat to lions at the zoo (that's been what's it's like my whole life anyway, why stop now?). It's Philly, are there enough hick and jock and army/army wife cop/cop wife freaks that're fans of ours in Philly? Have we gotten enough of that sweet ~middle America~ that Walter so desperately craves? Would they drive all the way out from Pennsyltucky for a show? I fucking hope so. Fucking try me, motherfuckers. Pay this sick fucking pervert to be your song-and-dance faggot and then trample me to death for the trouble. Who wants to kill for art?

*

Didn't end up fully going thru w/it. In the battle between my sex drive and my death drive, the former is still winning most of the immediate battles (of course, there's a depressing amount of overlap between the two these days). If I do get thrown in a psych ward during/after this, I should tell them that being a leather gay's the only thing that's kept me from killing myself this year, so they can shove their stupid manual up their ass (and maybe start to feel a little better themselves...). I DID inject some extra sex into my dancing and I did crack a few ambiguously ~risque~ jokes here and there where I wouldn't otherwise, enough to make Jeff squirm, but that's easy shit. Boring at this point. The real reason I behaved myself was Nathan, unsurprisingly. I'm feeling closer and closer to crazy but I want to be able to keep things together as much as I can around him-- there's so much I can still do with him, I can't go fully crazy, I can't scare him away after all we've already done-- and especially when he played and looked as beautiful as he did tonight: spandex-leather pants, a bolo tie around his bare neck, one of the tanks I cut up for us earlier on his otherwise-bare chest, playing my favorite guitar of his more often than not-- powder blue stratocaster. So lost in his own playing at times that the simulated orgasms seemed truly organic (and then, of course, all I could think of was giving those to him myself). I wanted to kiss him and feel him so badly, hoped my voice could do so instead, that he would understand it, feel it, want me as badly as I wanted him. I remembered fantasizing, on tour last time, about making him cum just with my voice. I'd feel disgusted at myself later, couldn't even see it or accept it as fantasizing, hated the idea of influencing him in any way he didn't know about or want. Now, though, I know he wants it. It's different. It's good.

And I did have a shockingly good voice day tonight, too. I was surprising myself, and it's impossible to stay in a bad mood through that, through our joined mutual (temporary) closeness to perfection, so it was very lucky timing. And that extra surge of feeling from things going so well made things with Nate SO good... I asked him ~nicely~ if he'd like to kneel down for me please, if he'd like to suck me, and he obliged me. And the sweet look up he gave me at the beginning-- still not the sort of look Jack would give me, more of a need for reassurance, but still SO good, ugh. And I did give him what he needed, and stroked that beautiful beautiful hair, that gorgeous chin, his sweet lower lip (he still had to nip my thumb once I did that-- a harmless sort of brattiness, and hot when he did it, but still remarked upon. And honestly, if he actually did it like he meant it, if he made me bleed, I would've been so turned on I would've forgiven it completely and skipped right to clawing up his back and chest and sinking my fucking teeth into him and fucking him senseless).

It's another thing I have to be slow and careful with for now-- him blowing me, that is. A lot of it is inexperience and the rest insecurity, but careful encouragement and reinforcement go a long way. Very much a Master-as-teacher moment[104]. So I taught him some about how to relax his jaw and throat, the kind of suction I like; reminded him to play with the head and how, things he could do with his hands. Had my own hand around the back of his neck, stroked it to help things along, squeezed it some when he was doing particularly well, even called him a good boy for it (a bit of that character, just a little more, just to see if he likes it, if he buys it, if it's okay)-- it made him start drooling for me nearly as well as Jack would sucking my gloved fingers, but of course, it was something he was a lot more self-conscious and shy about, and I was aware of it and gentle with my teasing. But anyway, he did very well for a first try, so I rewarded him in kind. We've fucked enough now that he's increasingly confident in telling me what he wants from it, too-- sometimes still in a shy little mutter, at first, but I always make him repeat himself louder (and if I'm feeling "bitchy", also more politely~) before I fuck him harder, or deeper, or at a certain angle, or with one or both of his strong, gorgeous legs up and over my shoulder(s), or anything else. When he's close, now, too, he asks for my hand around his neck. "It makes me cum like fucking crazy, man, I don't even know WHY.", He admitted, once, with a shy laugh. And there IS something funny about a singer choking his guitarist... far less ironic than if I enjoyed being choked, but still funny. And SO hot. Ugh.

God I just want to fuck his hole out, but he has to keep walking for the rest of the night. God I want him to myself all night. I want him to feel me the next day in every step he takes; not just in and around his ass or around his throat and in his jaw but also down his back, across his shoulders and chest and in his nipples, in and on the back of his thighs. I want him to get so used to the dull pain, the soreness, the bruising, the little whispers of sharper pain from scrapes and scratches (and eventually hopefully deeper welts), to have it remind him so much of all the pleasure it was a part of that he misses it once it goes away. I want him to go out and try to erase it, drown it in the silly rock n' roll sleaze that was enough for him before, only to have it keep gnawing at him once the party's over. I want him to Know, and Feel, with every part of him, that I'm the only one who can give him what he truly needs, that not even his stupid bike can do that for him. And then I want him to get on his knees and beg me for more.

I'm fantasizing about it now and I was after he left, too, even more, 'til I thought I was going to go crazy. Had to hit a club after that (and thank god we're in CIVILIZATION, so there ARE clubs). Found a cute guy in a nice harness n' jock (ugh, imagine Nathan in a jock… seeing the strap of it thru that rip in those fucking jeans and snapping it…), hung around and made out awhile before being able to grab a room-- there were different kinds of cuffs and chains and collars and things against walls, a sling set-up in the middle. Various tools to inflict various pains (sometimes the task at hand does in fact call for a blunt instrument, I can concede that[105]). Whoever he was and is, I know he felt me the next day-- likely the day after that, too. I made sure of that. But it's not the fucking same. It never could be. Could Nate ever be mature enough to go to a club with me? Doubtful, at least for the near future, and I'm not sure how much more of a future we have left. The end of things is getting closer and closer-- maybe another reason my crazy's so close by these days, always itching at the corners, leaping out in ways that are more and more difficult to explain away. But anyway, yes, regardless of how far I've been able to go with Nathan, how much it[106] still excites me to think about-- he’s so gorgeous I’d have to show him off, I know I’d be the envy of the damn place-- the idea of him being a fucking baby around gays that aren't me is enough to keep him away from clubs. He doesn't deserve them at this point. I wish we had more time. I know deep down that neither my body nor mind will give me that time, though. I'm already gone and I'm giving him all I have left without a clear idea that he'll even recognize or understand what I'm giving him.

*

Maybe it’s just as well that I’m not some beauty queen anymore. It’s what made Lorenzo want me so much, or at least, that’s what he would always tell me. That I was so “pretty”. Even if it wasn’t literally true, it was the excuse he used to try and do whatever he wanted to me whenever he wanted it, so it might as well have been true. And he wasn’t the first one and he wouldn’t be the last. For a long time, it felt good to use that to my advantage and for my own benefit, once I could trust that I could. Like with Kyle-- ways I could be in control of, at least for awhile. During the time I was with Rick, at La Rosa, I didn’t even have to worry about it that way. I could just be. But it was always an extremely vulnerable line elsewhere. It was a line that meant before-and-after every fucking show in some Provo-Utah or Norman-Oklahoma was spent on edge, getting leered at, hearing slurs muttered out of the corners of mouths, bracing for a beating, even after we got big enough to have better security[107]. I got so fucking used to it that I thought it didn’t phase me anymore, but thinking about it now makes me want to go back and beat the shit out of at least one of them. I hate that I couldn’t have done it and got away with it even if I thought of it at the time. There’s so much in my life I just had to fucking swallow down. --I know I’m far from the only one that way, but I guess I’ve hit some personal limits.

And no one gave a fuck, either. They’ve fucking seen how I’ve been treated by Walt, by random guys, by religious nuts, and they just step back. Not their problem. Not even Nathan’s problem. He’s said before that he wanted to be my friend, but you’re not a very good friend if you stand back and watch shit like that happen. Or when you laugh along when it’d make you look good. When you only like me when I’m not too embarrassing for you. Maybe now he'll at least understand, some. But I don't want to count on it. He's very good at only understanding what is convenient for him to understand.

I’ve gotten way less shit on the road this time around, and it’s made the past tours stand out even more starkly, I think. It’s made the times I DO get shit really piss me off. Some asshole called me a “fucking queer” when we were all headed out from the venue in some rotten asscrack of a rundown suburb and I called him an inbred fucking hick retard. Felt like shit after for making security have to worry about things, but UGH. Nate thought it was funny, of course. He doesn’t get it. He’s lucky that way. If I do figure something out by the end of this, if he stays with me, his luck will probably run out in some way. And that’ll probably be when he’s done with me. He can run from it, so he will. Like Greg did. Like Kyle did. Like Sam did (him not because of me, but generally). I’m fucking stuck with it no matter what. I CAN'T run from it[108]. And I’m never good enough on my own to make anyone stay for me, because of me. --Nate does seem to truly like me like this/be attracted to me like this, right now. Being able to have that kind of satisfaction-- more than just that, satisfaction doesn’t really have a thrill to it-- is usually enough, for now. Days like that and days like today, it doesn’t matter. Every old frustration comes bleeding out anyway.

*

[103]Jeff also asked me if if I ever actually fucked Walter, which no, I don’t think I’ll ever be THAT desperate. Thank you for the awful imagery, Jeffrey. And besides, if I was, he would NEVER let me forget it; he would hold it over my head ‘til the end of time. Ugh, even thinking about it’s making me nauseous again. If he touched Nathan I'm killing him and I don't care what Nathan wants.

[104]Another thing that could have filled me with disgust-- conceptualizing Master as teacher; dom/sub as master-and-apprentice/student. But it's been fine. I'm not doing it like He did. And it's something Nathan is familiar with anyhow: the discipline of craft.

[105]The whip was still the most fun-- Ugh, the SOUND... of the whip itself cutting thru air, striking flesh, the sounds he couldn't help but make eventually, pain laced with pleasure, pleasure laced with pain, perfect. And the marks it made, and being able to stroke and kiss and lick them when I fucked him, scratch them in deeper, how much he loved to have them stroked/kissed/licked/scratched, how much we both got off on how much he took for me, how close it got me-- I understand why guys like my scars a little more, now, when I allow them to be seen. I've still been lucky with Nathan.

[106]And the thought of having him chained up in one of those rooms, whipping him, those sounds of pain and pleasure in his little whine, taking so much for me, loving it more and more; those marks on his beautiful back, against all his muscles; kissing and stroking them, adoring him, ugh.

[107]I hate being shuttled from place to place in limos, hate that it’s a necessity at times, but in places like that I admit there’s a relief to being inside a bubble.

[108]And in my most cynical, pessimistic moments I fear that they all knew it, that I was always just some freak they could fuck for fun or curiosity and dump after that curiosity was satisfied. What could I do about it, right? How convenient. But then again, I was the one that fucking put up with it. Pathetic in my own right.