Page 55 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Nobody is going to give him permission this time.
Crane tries to remember: What was it he said? Well, not said. Bad choice of words. What was it he thought the night Jess arrived at the gas station, the night he was bent over the manager’s desk? The sex is better when he doesn’t know if he agreed to it. It’s better when it hurts and there’s a hand around his throat because it’s correct. Because that’s where he’s supposed to be.
It’s different this time.
Levi’s taken out his cock and he’s nudging it against Crane’s cunt, lining it up, groaning that raspy “fuck” he does as soon as the tip slips in. And Crane is being good. He spreads his legs so Levi can buryhimself inside, even though it stings and he winces. He doesn’t pull away. Instead he puts a hand over his belly as if to protect it, as if he’s some kind of mother.
“There you go,” Levi growls. He’s pulling Crane’s hips against him so he can get a better angle. The other hand is holding him down by the throat. The heel of his palm presses into the windpipe. Crane didn’t realize he was moaning until he suddenly chokes. His lungs struggle to inflate. “Just like that.”
Does he want this? The question isn’tdoes he like it, the question isn’tis it hot, it isn’tis he going to cum so hard he’ll be weak-kneed and shaky.That’s not what’s being asked. None of those are the same question. None of them have anything to do with each other.
The questionis, would he have said yes? Right now, if Levi would really listen to the answer, would he have said no?
Or would he say please? Because that’s the only thing he can think right now. Because Crane can’t tell the difference between one question and the other, because this is the only thing that feels right. The boys in the locker room, the dog, the time Levi fucked his throat so hard he vomited.
Levi keeps talking as he thrusts into him, fucks Crane into the dusty floor. About how wet his cunt feels. About how hot Crane sounds when he’s choking. He rambles sex-slurred fantasies about what Crane must’ve looked like fucking Aspen and Birdie and calls him a slut, that the hive chose Crane because he’s a slut. He says Crane would’ve let himself get knocked up by anything that’d have him. He says Crane is perfect for this, Crane has always been a bitch in heat, Crane is being such a good girl.
And Crane can’t even be mad because Levi is right. Levi pants like an animal and snarls when he calls Crane a whore, and Crane likes it,of course he likes it. What’s the point of having sex with men if you don’t get to see the grunting, sweaty beast-thing they turn into when they fuck you? Crane’s eyes flutter shut, lips parted, hand fumbling around his stomach for his clit because if this is going to happen he might as well get off too. It feels good, doesn’t it? It feels good, it feels good, it feels—
How dare he get off on this. What the fuck is wrong with him. Disgusting motherfucker. Fucking whore.
They don’t finish at the same time, but it’s close. Levi groans, releases Crane’s throat from his grip, slumps over to press his sweaty face to a bruised, blue-veined breast. His hips are still rolling, working through the aftershocks. He’s still whispering. God knows what. And Crane shudders. His thighs shake.
“I know,” Levi whispers. He takes Crane’s left hand, pulls it from his belly, presses it against the floor. Readjusts his grip. Holds two fingers tight. “I know. Let’s just get this part over with.”
The fingers break easily. The wet crack sounds like a stick snapping in the mud. Crane screams.
He’ll do what he’s told. He’ll be everything the hive wants, give it every single shred of himself. Every piece, every shard. Every damn thingin his womb. He’ll be so perfect and so good, and when the baby’s finally born and the lockdown lifts and Levi slips for a second, when he’s distracted forjust a second, Crane’s going to do it.
All he has to do is make it there. He’s not sure how.
Twenty-Two
Twenty-four weeks.
Levi refuses a request to go to urgent care for Crane’s broken bones—it’s the pointer and middle finger of his nondominant hand, swollen and purple and visibly incorrect—so Tammy sets them in the living room and splints them with popsicle sticks and duct tape from Dollar General.
Jess doesn’t come with. Tammy doesn’t bring her up.
Twenty-five.
Crane can’t remember the last time he showered. His hair is too long. One Sunday he wakes up and realizes he hasn’t done histestosterone shot in almost a month. He stares at the vent where he’d hidden the vial of hormones and can’t make himself get up to retrieve it.
Twenty-six.
The baby moves regularly now. Turning, stretching, pressing hands or feet into Crane’s ribs. Every movement conjures an image: a severed dog head in a Soviet documentary, reacting to stimuli while attached to an ugly machine. Veterinarians rescuing an unborn fawn by cracking open a smeared piece of roadkill.
Still, he catches himself rubbing the places it touches, following its fingers with his own. He hums, too. Not gently or anything; it’s just that it seems to calm the baby down when he needs a break. There’s no voice for it to get accustomed to, only the specific vibration, or the unique muscular fingerprint of his heartbeat.
Twenty-seven.
Sophie is supposed to be dead.
Crane doesn’t hold any particular malice toward Sophie. That flattens the reality of the situation to the point of inaccuracy. She was fucked-up, but she was a sweet kid. She did her best with what she had; half-convinced that if she graduated high school and went to college and got a good job and married a nice boy, she’d be fine, half convinced she wouldn’t make it to twenty if she didn’t do something drastic soon. The imbalance was eating her alive.
It wasn’t that Crane wanted her dead. It was just that she was never going to survive what it took for him to crawl out of her.
So, looking in the mirror now is like catching sight of a zombie.
