His bed was one of my favorite things; it had no box spring to hold it up, just a mattress on the floor with a giant, lumpy comforter covering our almost-naked bodies. I slept on the left side of the bed where his heater sat on the wall, loudly pumping out warm air. When lying still we could hear the quiet scratching and tapping of little mice scurrying through the walls around us. A part of me hated thinking of waking up to a mouse sitting on my chest, but another part liked the thought that mice lived around his bed, like a little mouse mansion.

How smooth his skin was… the nicest I’ve ever felt, like a baby’s, untouched and unharmed. I liked biting his perfect skin; I liked being able to look at the purple and red marks and the feelings they gave me—the feelings that he was mine; I had damaged him that way. When I ran my hands through his chin-length hair it would feel sticky with remnants of the gel that held it in place the night before.

He’d lie on top of me with his smoothness and his stickiness, and the silver necklace he always wore would hang down, cold on my bare chest. He’d wake me up like that and hand me a cup of tea with lemon, which I hated, and then a plate of breakfast, which I loved. We’d put on a movie, keeping the white blinds closed over the window, even though the Saturday winter sun beamed through, telling us it was time to start the day.