I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Sleaze is not good at this – at love. He knew love from his father (even though that affection itself had its own odd twists), but then his father left without saying a word, and then – then there was nothing. A series of fleeting moments and with some of them he even felt like he was on the brink of something, like he could see love, or something like it, on the horizon, a hazy destination, but they all left before he could arrive. Which was okay. Some things are best kept in the distance.
But then Isakov had come, had brought such peace to him, had touched him in ways that Sleaze had not known he’d craved.
Such a brilliant horizon, like he was burned alive in the sun.
Of course I did, Isakov says, like this should all be expected. But Sleaze knows abandonment far better than he knows love, so he was far less sure of the matter of Isakov’s return. Still, he is joyous for it, so glad to be near him again, to share this child.
“Not ‘til she was nearly here,” he admits, then, “by the time I was sure, I couldn’t find you.”
He touches the girl, as if to assure himself of her existence.
“What should we name her?” he asks, then adds, “I’m not particularly good at names.”
His own, for example. And he, Sleaze, was borne from Garbage and Cancer – elegant names do not run in his family, and he thinks their daughter deserves a better start than he had.
Sleaze
@[isakov]