Metawriting/Rant – The Closing of the Queer Imagination

It may sound a bit ridiculous to some, but I have always found my writing in the MC/TF genre to be as much about politics and philosophy as it is about sex and the erotic. In many ways, this is because sex and the erotic can’t help but be political–the determination of what kinds of bodies are beautiful, what kinds of bodies are normal, what kinds of relationships and forms of intercourse are allowed, who gets to have power in relationships and in sexual acts–these are all political questions. The stories I write, then, contain within them their own political visions and imaginations. They are not idyllic visions. The outcomes are almost universally dystopic and horrific. At times, as I have mentioned off and on in various asks, I’ve found it difficult to try and square the fact that I find these horrors intensely erotic with my more sober politics of radical liberation. How can I argue for self-determination (for example) when my stories revolve around controlling the minds and bodies of others?

There are a few answers I’ve considered and rejected. One is to accept the fact that the erotic and an individual’s erotic fantasies simply cannot be grounded in any sort of political fact. After all, fantasies and politics exist on different planes–the former are necessarily impossible to bring forth in reality, while the latter is necessarily pragmatic and grounded in reality. However, I don’t feel this boundary viable. Politics and fantasies may exist in different realms, but they certainly do inform one another. Politics, after all, is the attempt to render our fantasies real, as best we can. Just because they don’t share a type with one another doesn’t mean that they aren’t related in other ways. A second defense I considered was that these stories, as horror stories, are meant to be terrible and shunned and avoided as satire. However, given the fact that they are also erotic the satire argument doesn’t feel sincere. In the thick of these fantasies, I generally want for these things to be happening; the satire claim is largely rational revisionism after shooting. I began to think that there was no reconciling these two ideas; that I’d have to accept at least some level of cognitive dissonance.

Along with this, I have always insisted on keeping a rather large divide between Wesley Bracken and my real name–while quite a few people in my real life know about the fiction I write, very few know *who* I am when I write it. It is, perhaps, a trivial barrier, but one I keep up regardless in order to protect my livelihood, but I’ve never been particularly happy about needing it. The secret has always felt as though it were driven largely by shame and a desire to keep these fantasies hidden within myself, as a way to keep them from emerging into my other life, but that felt deeply troubling in its own way. To me, part of a radical politics is about defeating and overcoming sexual shame. Shame is one of the key methods of social oppression–a system convincing the individual to oppress and internalize their desires against themselves.

These thoughts on politics and shame coincided with other thinking I’ve been doing on the nature of power exchange relationships. The more I have been on tumblr, the better I have understood what a real power exchange looks like. Contrary to what my writing might imply, I am a largely vanilla character in real life. The few times I ventured into anything remotely like BDSM in prior relationships I have learned were very contrary to safe power exchange–committed without communication or consent, without a safe word, without any sort of preparation of solid aftercare. I came to realize that fantasies can be brought forth into reality–even deeply unequal fantasies–without great harm being committed against either party. That in turn helped me feel better about my own fantasies, once I placed them in that context. I realized that much of the conflict I’d been feeling was the result of an internalized mainstream depiction of sadomasochism and other sexual deviance as something inherently immoral, shameful, the people who desire it broken and mentally faulty. I had bought into that idea, internalized it. After all, having a fantasy is one thing–a thought. A politics of that fantasy is a further step–an action based on that thought. Admitting to the thought is not at all the same as committing the action. Furthermore, there is a distinction to be made between a controlled instance of a fantasy committed with consent, and one forced on another without consent. My shame wasn’t worth it, and I decided to try and root it out as best I could.

One of those means of dispelling that shame has been an attempt to embrace what I might call the queer imagination. As queers outside mainstream sexuality, gender and relationships, we have largely been left to our own devices to decide what sorts of relationships and communities we craft. Make no mistake, crafting those communities have never been easy, because they have always been under constant attack from social authorities, but craft them we have. For queers, it was alright to be single or serially monogamous. It has been acceptable to participate in a triad, a quad, or a community of lovers, friends and found family. It has been ok to be committed and monogamous as well. All of these ways of living, by being equally ostracized, were all imagined and realized by queers outside of mainstream respectability. In a similar way, that imagination is responsible for pushing the boundaries of acceptable sex and intercourse. None of the fantasies I put down are new or unique–I still think most of my writing is less shocking than Marquis de Sade’s stories over three centuries ago. The queer imagination is one of the few spaces of liberation beyond the mainstream, beyond acceptability and respectability. It is, I have realized, the root of stories like “City of Bears”, which is at the core a radical re-imagining of what a society can look like–a society without women and children, without the certainty of physical and mental identity, without any sort of mainstream future. The queer imagination is perhaps our greatest weapon in liberation–without the ability to imagine and fantasize about alternative societies and politics, the status quo becomes inescapable. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen for any queer radical politics (to borrow rather cheekily from Alan Bloom’s mainstream culture war manifesto of the 90’s) is a closing of the queer imagination.

And so I pivot to Friday’s supreme court ruling in favor of nationwide same sex marriage. It is, of course, a positive step for queer rights, and yet, as I see the various celebrations unfolding across social networks, my mood moves from sweet, to bittersweet, to mostly bitter. On facebook, everyone is literally pinkwashing themselves with a rainbow overlay–people who I have never seen a single post from regarding queer rights are suddenly proud on my behalf. Now that we are a trend, now that we are on the right side of history, now that it isn’t 2004 with George W. Bush using us as a wedge issue, we can have their support. I see every corporate brand and logo suddenly displaying the six color rainbow flag (which, it bears mentioning, isn’t even the original rainbow flag–the original had eight colors, all with a particular meaning which have been all but forgotten in the modern queer movement) and by and large, it is companies with rather questionable political practices. Uber has a six lane rainbow highway, but is still trying to illegally classify its drivers as independent contractors. Levis has turned it’s logo into a rainbow, but never mind their sweatshops, abhorrent labor standards, and outsourcing. Everyone is celebrating, but the celebration is politically meaningless. Everyone wants to be the good ally, but no one seems to care about what being an ally means.

All of this stands in the shadow of pride month, as well. Sunday was the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which were begun and fought by trans women of color. Those women fought the police because they could imagine an alternative to prosecution and tyranny by the police, because they could imagine a world where their lives weren’t regulated and criminalized by the state. Even before that was the Compton Cafeteria riot in San Francisco, fought for the same reasons. Queer liberation has always been and will always continue to be an act of the queer imagination–but there has also always been a queer mainstream interesting in silencing that imagination in the name of assimilation. Earlier this week Jennicet Gutiérrez, a trans latina activist, heckled Obama in a room full of LGBT activists, all of whom helped boo her from the room. The plight of undocumented trans women is apparently less pressing than respectability politics. This, of course, echos what occurred in San Francisco over 40 years ago, when Sylvia Rivera–also a latina trans activist, also fighting for trans liberation from prisons–fought her way to the stage, only to be similarly heckled during pride “"celebrations”“. Pride. I have been to various prides, and rarely see anything to be proud of. I see consumerism and pinkwashing and celebrations of false progress narratives, the same sorts of meaningless celebrations I have seen across social media these last few days. It seems we have forgotten who we should be celebrating, what exactly we should be proud of, and that any celebration without imagination is no celebration at all.

Marriage can never liberate us. Marriage is not about love; it is about legitimacy. I am a married queer, but I am not married because that marriage makes the relationship to my partner real or stronger–I am married for pragmatic protection. I am married so that we can have easy access to health care through employer coverage. I am married so that should something happen to one of us, we are able to make decisions on the other’s behalf without contest. I am married so we can share a more privileged tax status. I shouldn’t have to be married to gain access to these benefits–no one should have to. I have been married for five years, but I have been in love for seven, and my relationship in those two earlier years was never less important to me. Queers have been falling in love forever without marriage. Marriage is about control and regulation, not love. It is about the dulling and dimming of sexual and romantic imaginations. Friday’s decision was, and always will be, a fundamentally conservative victory–it will just take conservatives a few more years to figure that out. I find it amazing, in fact, that it is in the conservative imagination that queer fantasies have manifested as horrors! "All of our marriages have been cheapened!” they despair. Imagine! Why, what if we cheapened and de-valued marriage itself for everyone? What if we abolished the legitimacy of this coercive institution, instead of enshrining it further? “Polygamy is next!” they cry. Why not? Why shouldn’t we be able to recognize relationships with more than two people as valuable to society? Why not embrace triads and quads or larger communities of relationships? “How will we possibly procreate!” they moan. Indeed! What might happen if we dispel the cult of the child? What might happen if we stop breeding, and instead stem overpopulation, caring for those in the present rather than the hypothetical future?

What I see is a possible closing of the queer imagination. It is a closing that I see stemming from the horrors of HIV and AIDS through the 80’s and 90’s. I am young, born in 1988. I do not know what it was like to live through the Plague. My husband, who is twice my age, has told me his own stories of friends dying, of terror, of loneliness. I have read other accounts, and they make me weep, universally. I find I must come to the conclusion that AIDS succeeded where dominant mainstream culture couldn’t, by literally murdering queers with any sort of sexual or romantic imagination. Those who survived the plague often did so through abstinence, through fear and loathing, by closing off their desires and living in the closet. All I can do is mourn for everyone we lost, for an entire generation of imaginative queers decimated. For me personally, I can only talk about growing up in the aftermath. How my middle school health classes were full of fear-mongering and threats and lies about the disease and how it was spread. How, when I realized I was gay, my first feeling was one of terror, that I too might become little more than a plague body. That when I came out to my father, one of his comments to me was akin to: “You know you’ve chosen a difficult lifestyle. What if you get AIDS?” Looking back, I realize that all of this was working to stifle and shame any sort of queer imagination in myself, by associating anything outside of mainstream heterosexual coupling with sickness and death. This is the terrible foundation on which the gay marriage movement was built. It is a movement of fearful, unimaginative white cis queers knocking at the door of social hetero legitimacy, begging to be let in–that they’ll be good, boring, mainstream couples as long as they can be safe. That as long as they aren’t left out to die, they’ll behave. And now they have been let in. They’re in–myself included–but there are still so many people left out.

The HIV crisis isn’t anywhere near over for African Americans, who make up 44% of new infections, more than eight times the rate of whites overall, according to the CDC. Of all groups, the greatest at risk population are African American adolescents. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the questions of police brutality and right wing extremism and their threat to the black community. Our trans siblings are still being murdered and locked up at astronomical rates. No amount of marriage can protect them, no amount of marriage can protect any of us. Instead, we have given over control of our relationships to the very society which has shown at every turn to despise us, to hate us, to view as perverts, as walking corpses, as death. These are the people we are now asking to save us. This is the altar at which we have chosen to sacrifice our imaginations. We can do better than marriage; we can imagine more than marriage.

Image Vignette: The Life Sucked Out of Me

This, was me.

This was me before I met my master–before I got the life sucked out of me.

I should explain. I was a hotshot cub, and my real fetish, the one I couldn’t get enough of, was bondage. Something about getting hogtied, of having all the power stripped away from me was the biggest turn on in the world. I was always on the lookout for some top to strap me down and do whatever he wanted to me–unfortunately, I found out the hard way that what some predators want can be…unconventional.

He messaged me, something about an officer wanting to come make an arrest someone aching for punishment. It didn’t have a photo attached, but the scenario sounded fucking sexy. I’d always loved cops, especially in uniform, so I messaged back with an address, and said I’d be waiting for a warrant. My reply came from a knock on the door. When I opened it, I had just enough time to take in the silver daddy filling out his leather uniform, chuffing on a big cigar and damn, was he hot. Older than I usually liked my men, but he would do just fine.

Then, he had me shoved up against the wall and his handcuffs around my wrists, the entire force of his weight on me, the cigar in his mouth heating my ear. “Oh yes, you’ll do nicely…good and young and fresh…” he said. He pulled out a chloroform soaked rag and covered my face, and before I could even get out a safe word, I was asleep.

I woke up back in the lair, in one of master’s playrooms, although he wasn’t my master then–not yet. I woke up bound to a wrought iron bed, my hands in mitts and chained to the posts, my legs spread eagle to the bottom corners, and stripped down to my jock, and my harness. I struggled for a few minutes, and even the terror of an actual kidnapping was enough to quell the raging hardon distending my jock. It was a scene right out of my most twisted fantasies, and I was loving it, and yet, what did he have planned for me? Would he let me go?

I don’t know how long until he returned, it could have been minutes or hours, but he did come back, still in uniform. “Hello boy–welcome to my sanctum,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll learn to love it here, like the rest of my thralls. Still, I’ve had a few passings lately and I need to replenish my…stock. Still, the first time is such a pleasure, I’m sure neither of us will mind.” He grinned, and I saw something I hadn’t in the doorway–the fangs. I freaked. I begged, I pleaded and fought and struggled, while he removed one of his gloves, licked his finger, and ran the saliva up my chest. The sensation was indescribable, the burn of the spit became pure pleasure coursing through my body, and in my sudden convulsions of delight I felt my cock began to leak, and he bent over, sucking the precum from my jock. “Delicious…you will be a feast, I can already tell–I won’t have to eat for days!” He pulled back my jock, revealing my red, throbbing cock, and he looked up at me, “Well thrall, are you ready to have the life sucked out of you?”

Before I could say a word, his mouth was around my cock, and I screamed from the pain of his teeth sinking in, my sudden, forceful ejaculation, and the pleasure from his spit dribbling down the shaft of my cock. He began sucking, and I swear, I could feel him latch onto my very spirit, and begin drawing it from my body.

My hair began to recede at first, and turn grey, my brilliant red goatee turning pure white, as the changes worked their way down my body. My chest hair turning grey, my skin taking growing pale, toned body growing fat until I had a prominent gut, cheeks becoming sunken and sallow. I had no energy to fight, I could only lay there and allow the vampire to have his way with me, to take my youth, feed from me. I thought things couldn’t get worse than that, but they did. I could feel him manipulating my mind, erasing my memories, replacing them with love and devotion to him. I was made to serve him, to obey him, to be his thrall. It consumed my mind, it is all I can think about any longer.

I do not know how long it took for him to feast upon my soul. The men I have seen him eat since then, he can drain them in minutes, or hours. Sometimes, when I enter the room to clean up, there is nothing but a husk, or a pile of dust, but I was lucky. He chose me, he remade me into his servant, and I will be forever thankful.

When he was sated, he stood again, wiping the cum and blood from his lip, and I saw him, my master, in his true form, restored to his glory.

The hole where my soul, my will had been minutes or hours before now ached with a burning need to service him, to obey his every command until I should pass on. He released me from my bondage, and I accepted my new bonds of the spirit, kneeling before him, now old and decrepit, worshiping and servicing his massive member, and then he gave me my task.

I bring him men. Any man will do, but my master prefers them young and willful. I pose as the lonely daddy, the sugar daddy. I buy them drinks, I ply them with drugs, I bring them to the master’s lair and he feasts, and in return, he gives me strength. Small trickles of youth from a kiss, or his cum, which will keep me alive for a few more days, long enough to bring a new victim, and receive what I need most. I am a thrall of a vampire, and this…this is me.

Image Vignette: Replacement Parts

“Alright, and here’s the guest room, where you can stay. It’s a bit…tight, I’ll admit. It used to me my…uh…friend’s workshop, so pardon the mess.” Marty said, and scratched the back of his head in slight embarrassment as Ryan looked around the room with some dismay. It certainly would have never passed inspection back in the Navy, but it would have to make do.

“This looks fine,” Ryan said, “I just hope you’re not expecting me to start right now,” he added with a smile. The rain outside was horrendous. Marty’s truck had gotten stuck in a patch of deep mud, and they’d both had to hike a half mile through the heavy rain to the farmhouse. Ryan’s clothes were soaked, and Marty had dropped his bag in a puddle, meaning he had nothing dry to wear. Marty had been just as soaked, but the short, stocky redneck had already taken a moment to change into a dirty white undershirt, cut off flannel vest and some jeans.

“Hah, nah, I wouldn’ make ya do that. Tomorrow mornin’ will be fine, if the weather clears,” Marty said, “You can just focus on getting settled this evening. Um…How about I go get these dryin’,” he said, referring to Ryan’s bag, “and ya can strip out a those. There’s probably some a Bill’s old work clothes in the closet there ya can wear fer the time being.”

Ryan heaved a bit of a sigh, and looked around at the cramped space again. Two tours of duty, and this is where he’s ended up. He remembered when he’d talked to a recruitment officer, who had sworn the military was the best track into college and a high paying job there was–instead, here he was, working on some rural farm as a mechanic and handyman to get by. Still, he at least had a roof over his head, his youth, and his health, if little else, though he would definitely catch a cold if he didn’t change out of these sopping clothes. He stripped down and rummaged through the closet, but all he could find in there were a pair of battered overalls, which from the musty smell, hadn’t been washed or worn in quite a while. Still, he didn’t have a whole lot of options, so he stripped down to just his jockstrap and ball cap and then slipped the overalls on, cringing a bit from the crusty material.

They were far too large for his frame, even if he had put on a bit of a belly since leaving the navy. Whoever Bill was, he hadn’t been a small guy. Ryan had asked Marty a few questions about Bill on the way over, but he’d been pretty cryptic and didn’t appear to want to talk about it much. Apparently they’d been friends for a while. Marty had taken care of the farm work, while Bill handled the broken down equipment, the housework and selling goods in town, until Bill had died of a heart attack a few months before. Marty was still pretty young, and couldn’t keep up both sides of the business himself, so he’d hired Ryan to help him out in exchange for a small salary, room and board.

“Hey Ryan! Dinner’s on the table!” Marty called out, and Ryan, hiking up the legs of the overalls a bit so he didn’t trip, made his way downstairs into the kitchen, where Marty was busy laying out a massive spread of food, including a roast chicken, a massive bowl of mashed potatoes and heaps of gravy, bread, stuffing, the works.

“Ryan took a seat and shook his head, “Hey man, you didn’t have to cook all of this for me. I tend to be a light eater.”

“Nonsense,” Marty said, “Ya need tah keep yer strength up if yer gonna get to all the work I need done around here. Now eat up while I get you something to drink. But hey, no hats at the table.”

Ryan cocked one eyebrow, but Marty was serious, so he took off his cap and set it aside, before taking a generous portion of everything so that he wouldn’t seem rude, and looked over at Marty mixing up something on the counter. “What are you making?” he asked.

“Huh…oh! Uh, nothing much. Just a little whisky drink–a toast to old friends and new beginnings, eh?” Marty said, bringing over two glasses and handing one to Ryan. They clinked glasses and knocked them back–and the taste was far stronger and bitter than Ryan had been expecting, but it went down all the same.

“Dang, what the hell was that?” Ryan said, sputtering a bit.

“Aw, not much. Just a bit of mah home brew. Ya like it? I can get ya some more.”

Ryan really didn’t want any more, but decided against refusing Marty’s hospitality. He dug into the food on his plate, and found he was hungrier than he’d thought. He found himself taking bigger and bigger bites of the delicious food, and by the time Marty had returned, he polished off half of what he’d put on.

“Here ya are man. What, that all yer havin’? Come on, eat up! It’ll help ya grow,” Marty said with a wink, shoved the glass into Ryan’s hand and started piling his plate high. Without really thinking, Ryan knocked the second drink back as well, and the taste was easier now that he was expecting it, and without a word, dug into the mound of chicken and potatoes on his plate. Marty sat across from him, eating a bit, but mostly watching Ryan and grinning, getting up on occasion to bring him another drink, which Ryan took without objection. By the the end, Ryan had finished off the spread aside from the small bit Marty had eaten, and he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his gut and let off a big belch. “Dang Marty, that was some good shit,” he slurred, “Couldn’ eat another bite.”

“Sorry, but I still have dessert fer us,” Marty said, and brought over a deep dish apple pie, “I know how much ya love mah apple pie after all,” he whispered in Ryan’s ear, who unable to help himself, he took a fork and dug in, not even bothering to slice it. “Let me go get ya another drink,” Marty added, bringing over the rest of the whisky bottle, letting Ryan take swigs from it between giant bites. Marty stood behind him and started running his hands up and down Ryan’s front, both under and over the overalls he was wearing, making Ryan increasingly uncomfortable, but he was also feeling a bit…turned on. He could feel his cock growing uncomfortable in his jockstrap, and he found himself wondering why he was wearing it. He didn’t usually wear underwear, did he? The room was spinning around him, and he tried to focus, but between Marty rubbing his exposed nipples and the delicious pie he had to finish, his thoughts just kept slipping away from his fingers.

When he finally finished, Ryan leaned back in his chair, more stuffed than he’d ever been in his whole life, and suddenly, Marty grabbed his cheeks and kissed him, making Ryan sputter and twist away. “What in tarnation–I ain’t no faggot, fucker!” Ryan said, unable to tell if he was slurring his words, or if his voice really had just come out as a deep, southern twang.

“Well I guess someone ain’t quite ready yet,” Marty said, grabbed Ryan by the arm and helped him up from the chair onto unsteady feet, “Why don’ we go have a sit fer a bit, and relax after that big meal–that sound good, Bill?”

“Mah name ain’t Bill–it’s Ryan…” Ryan muttered, as he stumbled along next to Marty. His body felt strange all of a sudden, like he was too tall, but also a bit front heavy. He passed by a mirror in the hallway, and through his vision was blurred, it didn’t look quite right. He hadn’t had a beard before, had he? Certainly not the bushy light brown one covering his cheeks and chin. And hadn’t these overalls fit badly when he’d put them on? Now though, they felt very comfortable, holding his big gut just right, and he hadn’t stepped on the pant legs once. Marty flopped him down on the couch, and Ryan tried to struggle up, but he felt so weak and heavy. His jockstrap was cutting into his waist, and he really did need to take it off. He’d feel so much better without it on…and yet, another voice was telling him to keep it on, and take off the overalls. But why would he take them off? They were his favorite clothes after all–he wore them pretty much every day. Besides, Marty loved how he looked in them. Then again, Marty loved how he looked in everything…

Marty came back a few moments later, holding a big, bent pipe in his hand. “Here, I know how much you love a good smoke after dinner.” He lit the pipe and then passed it to Ryan, who took a big draw, and let out a big plume of smoke with a sigh.

“Yeah Marty, that’s the ticket. Thanks…” Ryan said, “I…I love ya…Marty.”

“I love you too, Bill.”

“Marty…Marty what’s happenin’ tah me? Why do I feel so strange…” Ryan said, still puffing on the pipe as his eyes swept the room.

“Don’t worry Bill, everythin’ will be back tah normal soon enough,” Marty said, leaned in for another kiss, but Ryan pushed him away. “God damn it, what the fuck is wrong wit ya Bill?”

“I told ya, my name ain’t Bill, it’s Ryan, ‘n I ain’t a fag!” Ryan cried, and tried to sit up from the couch, but the jockstrap cut into him suddenly, like it was trying growing tighter, making him cry out in pain. It felt like it was searing into his skin suddenly, and Marty undid one of the straps off Ryan’s overalls, reached down and felt the offending material.

“So that’s the problem–someone didn’ strip down all the way!” Marty said, “I can fix that.” He ran to the kitchen and came back with some shears, but Ryan fought back against him weakly, so Marty grabbed Ryan’s nipples and twisted them, making his cry out in pleasure as he felt his cock swell. “Now listen here Ryan, ya’re just here tah be some god damn replacement parts, ya got it? I ain’t gonna spend another day without Bill, so yer just gonna have to give up, got it? Now smoke that pipe ‘n hold still!”

“No…No please…please don’,” Ryan said, as Marty cut away his underwear and pulled them out, but as soon as they were gone, Ryan let out a sigh of relief. Fuck he felt better–why had he wanted to keep that jock on so badly anyway? He looked over at Marty, and with his hand reached out and cupped Marty’s crotch, giving it a light squeeze. “Come here ya lug, ‘n give me some sugar…” he said, and Marty, grinning, leaned over and kissed Ryan, his beard growing in faster as they kissed, sharing the smoke from Bill’s old pipe. However, as they were kissing, Ryan felt his balls start to heat up, and soon they hurt enough for him to let out a moan of pain.

“Wh..what is it Bill? What’s wrong?”

“Mah fuckin’ balls, man–fuck! Feels like someone got ‘em caught in a vice!” Ryan fumbled with the fly on the overalls, opened it up, and hauled out his cock. It had grown thicker and longer, as well as growing a meaty foreskin over the head, but his balls hurt more by the second.

Marty however, was overjoyed. The potion was actually working–the witch had been right. Now all Bill had to do was cum, expelling the remnants of Ryan, and he’d have Bill, his redneck, the love of his life back, and they’d never be parted again. He got down on his knees and swallowed Ryan’s new tool to the hilt, making him scream in ecstacy. It only took a couple of good sucks before Ryan was cumming and spasming, releasing his lifesource into Marty’s mouth, who spit it on the floor, and then the body on the couch collapsed back, limply.

Bill? Buddy?” Marty said, shaking the big man’s shoulder, “Hey! Wake up!”

The man let out a groan and grabbed his head. “Fuck man…what the hell? What…what did ya do?”

“I brought ya back Bill…you’re home.” Marty said, and pulled him into a big hug, “I love ya so much, I ain’t never gonna let ya leave me like that ever again.”