Bleed For You

Michael Louis Calvillo

FIRST EDITION

Bleed For You © 2010 by Michael Louis Calvillo

Cover Artwork © 2010 by Zach McCain
All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

places and incidents are either a product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DELIRIUM BOOKS
P.O. Box 338
North Webster, IN 46555
www.deliriumbooks.com

Author Acknowledgements: As always, I’d like to

thank my family, friends, and students for their
continued support. I’d also like to extend an extra
special thanks to Shane Staley and the Delirium
team for the opportunity.
Michelle—I bleed for you forever.
“The one who loves you,
will make you weep.”
—Argentine Proverb
 1
Beauty And The
Freak

“What’s up, dickface?”

Freddy kept his eyes glued to the
book. He gripped his pen tightly and
leaned on his notepad with defensive
purpose.
Ray Stern was undeterred by the
tense body language. Same for his
sidekick, Jimmy Lowe. If anything,
Freddy’s anxiety egged them on. De-
spite the absolute quiet of the library,

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 Bleed For You
they took turns lobbing insults at full
volume. Miss Camille, the eighty-
two year old librarian, didn’t notice
a thing. The old biddy kept her hear-
ing aids off for most of the work day.
She said it helped her concentrate on
the never ending pile of paperwork
growing like an incurable tumor on
her desk.
“Is all that reading and writing
getting your pussy wet?” Jimmy was
fond of accusing Freddy of having a
vagina. He’d been doing it since the
sixth grade, right after he heard one of
the cartoon cutouts on South Park do
it to one of its cartoon cutout friends
(though Jimmy and Freddy were any-
thing but friends). Even after Freddy
went away for a year, then came back,
assholes like Jimmy picked up their
bullying right where they left off.
“Is it making your dick nose
hard?” Ray liked to compare his

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
nose to a penis. Freddy wasn’t sure
where the genius dreamed that one
up. Most insults were grounded in
some sort of truth. Sure, his nose was
large, it made his whole face look like
it was insistently pointing, and it was
probably one of the main reasons life
christened him a dork, but it looked
nothing like a phallus. It was thick
and bulbous and oily and wide, not
cylindrical and long. Freddy figured
he’d have no trouble putting together
a solid comeback, somehow remark-
ing on the shape of Ray’s penis and
his confusion as to what a penis was
supposed to look like, laughing at him
for comparing his jock-god-member
to Freddy’s nerd defining nose, but,
well, he was used to the verbal abuse
and he’d rather weather stupid in-
sults than punishing fists.
“Come on, Fred-dick, read that
shit! Oh! Oh! Yes! Yes!” Jimmy made

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 Bleed For You
lewd moaning noises and humped
the table opposite Freddy’s chair.
Ray reached over and ripped the
book and notepad from his grasp.
Freddy tried to hold on to his things,
but the bully got a decent grip and
yanked them free. He threw the note-
pad to Jimmy, and then the two of
them mock-fucked his school sup-
plies, grinding the book and notepad
against their crotches.
“Oh, Fred-dick!” Ray yelped in a
gravelly falsetto, “Fuck me with your
big ass dick nose!”
Freddy gripped his pen even
tighter and dreamed about ramming
it deep into Ray Stern’s meathead
neck. He envisioned a fountain of ar-
terial spray ruining the fucker’s Tut-
nam high school Tiger’s football jer-
sey, soaking the brilliant white sport
shirt to sopping pink-red mess. In-
stead, he kept his eyes on the table,

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
and waited for the idiots to finish vio-
lating his things.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to
wait long. Emily Peters, the hottest
chick in the twelfth grade, quite pos-
sibly the hottest chick in all of Tutnam
City, maybe even the hottest chick in
all of Tutnam County, entered the li-
brary and fast-walked over to his res-
cue. She whisper-yelled, “Ray!” then
sat her pink shoulder bag on the table
near Freddy and snatched the book
from the gyrating fool’s pumping
pelvis. Maintaining that respectful
library whisper, she chided, “Leave
him alone!”
She pinched Ray’s arm (hard)
then crossed her arms and held the
book close to her chest.
Freddy looked up from choking
on the pen. To be that book. He smirked
at the hot thought. Emily noticed and
gave him a half smile. Freddy quickly

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 Bleed For You
dropped his eyes back to the table.
“Babe?!” Ray rubbed his arm,
feigning pain. “My throwing arm!
That shit hurt! We’re just screwing
with him.”
Jimmy stopped humping the note-
pad and threw it on the table. “Yeah,
Em, we’re building his character. Put-
ting hair on the little guy’s tits.”
She glared at the jocks then sat in
the chair next to Freddy and put his
book back in front of him. He gave
her a sidelong glance then reopened
the book and searched for the page he
was reading before the holocaust of
fools interceded. Ray and Jimmy sim-
ply stared down at them until Emily
rolled her eyes and said, “Bye.”
“Really? What the hell, Em?” Ray
held his hands out at his sides and
waved her over.
Emily sighed and got up. She gave
him a weak hug and a quick peck on

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
the cheek then returned to her chair.
“Better. Damn.” The jock-o rolled
his head on his shoulders and cracked
his neck. “So? Seven, right?”
Emily nodded then narrowed her
eyes. She repeated, “Bye.”
Ray jokingly narrowed his eyes
back. He tried to stare her down, but
then blinked and gave up. “Geez.
Hardcore. All right. Good. Let’s go,
J. We gotta get out of here before we
catch whatever Em’s little homo study
buddy’s got.” He patted Jimmy’s
stomach then pump faked a smack to
his balls. The two idiots play fought
their way out of the library.
Freddy pretended to resume read-
ing. Emily messed with her shoulder
bag a bit then scooted her chair closer
to his.
Turing a page, he whispered, “I
take it you didn’t tell him.” The prop-
er library voice wasn’t really neces-

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 Bleed For You
sary, but etiquette was etiquette.
Emily didn’t answer. She rolled
her eyes as if to say duh then un-
zipped her bag and dug through it.
She brought out a spiral notebook
and a math book and then got down
to some Algebra II.
They worked in silence for a few
minutes, him pretending to read, her
pretending to formulate, until Freddy
sighed loudly and looked over. He
stared and stared until Emily sighed
back and broke down.
“Okay, Freddy!” She whisper-
yelled. “I’ll do it tonight. God.” She
shuffled a few papers in her note-
book then went back to pretending to
work.
Freddy watched her for another
minute. He muttered, “You promised
three weeks ago.”
Emily pushed her book away.
“Tonight, okay? I promise. Tonight.”

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
They stared at each other until
frustration and annoyance collapsed
into a pair of smirking smiles.
Freddy rode their improving
mood and pushed. “What?”
“What, what?” Emily reached
over and brushed some errant strands
of hair behind his right ear.
“What are you going to do to-
night?”
She shook her head then smiled
brighter. “Ask him to marry me.”
“Hey!”
“Well? What do you think, idiot?
I’m gonna break up with him.”
“And?” Freddy drummed a few
fingers on the table.
“Come on, Freddy!” she grabbed
his fingers and stilled them then
asked, “And what?”
He just stared.
Emily sighed again. “Yes, I’ll tell
him about us.”

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 Bleed For You
“You will?”
“I said I will.” She grabbed his face
and looked him in the eyes. “I will.”
She gave him a nice peck on the
lips then went back to pretending to
work. Freddy got himself resituated
with his book and began taking notes
in his notepad. After a moment he
stopped. “It’s been over three months,
you know?”
She put her pencil down and
smiled. “I know.”
He smiled back.
“And?” She batted her eyelashes
at him.
Freddy giggled. “Oh, it’s my turn
for the third degree, huh? Okay. I’ll
bite. And what?”
“And what does my sweet man
have planned for our four month an-
niversary?”
Shrugging, he sidled a little closer.
“Make an honest man out of me and

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
we’ll see.” He leaned in and pecked
her on the cheek then got back to his
book.
Emily drew a little heart in the
bottom corner of her notebook then
looked up. “An honest man?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t think you’re using the
term correctly.”
“Well, right now I’m a big fucking
secret so—”
She cut him off before he could
bring their conversation back round
to the problem at hand. “No, not this,
not our situation—making an honest
man out of you would imply mar-
riage.”
“Well, you tell the world about us
and maybe that’s how I meant it…
Maybe in a few years. After school.
At college.”
Emily rocked her chair even clos-
er until their shoulders touched. She

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 Bleed For You
drew another frilly heart, this one on
Freddy’s notepad and then filled it in
and thickened the outline. She nod-
ded at some notes Freddy had made
on his paper. “What’s this?”
“Research.”
She pointed her pencil at the
words Virgin Blood. “Working on an
autobiography?”
“Funny.”
“Not funny…sad.” She made a
silly, pouty face.
“I’m proud of my virgin blood.”
Freddy smiled. He was, but then, he
really wasn’t.
“Well, you never know, do you?”
Emily licked her lower lip.
“What?”
She looked around then moved in
real, real close, her face to his ear and
said, “Virgin blood. You play your
cards right I might be able to help you
out with that. Dirty you up a little.”

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
She kissed his ear lobe then leaned
back in her chair.
Freddy swallowed a lump and
wiped a few beads of sweat from
his forehead. Suddenly the library
burned at about a million degrees.
“Really though? What is all this?”
Emily made a sweeping motion at the
open book and the notepad and then
honed in on another phrase jotted on
Freddy’s paper. “I bleed for you for-
ever?”
“Oh. That one is for you…I-I
was thinking about you…” Freddy
blushed. “The rest is research. Du-
gan’s class. I’m doing my paper on
Lady Bathory, the Blood Countess of
Cachtice. She murdered six hundred
and fifty virgins and bathed in their
blood.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yeah.” Freddy pointed at the
book. “She was searching for eternal

17
 Bleed For You
life. The purity of virgin’s blood is
rumored to have life sustaining prop-
erties. It’s been used in tribal, blood
rituals to raise the dead and in Lady
Bathory’s case—”
Emily raised a hand to stop him.
“Okay, my geek meter is going off.”
Freddy wilted.
“Relax. I think it’s cute. Just not…
Anyway…What are you doing this
evening?”
“Lady Bathory.” He held up the
book and rolled his eyebrows.
“You should get out. Do some-
thing. Go bowling. You used to love
bowling. I don’t like the idea of my
boyfriend sitting around his depress-
ing room reading depressing shit
about dried up old ladies and virgin’s
blood.”
“I don’t like the idea of my girl-
friend going out with her other boy-
friend.”

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
Emily flared her eyes and pushed
her chair back a few inches. “To break
up with him!” She closed her math
book. “I’m not talking about it any-
more, Freddy.”
He put a hand on her arm. “I’m
sorry. I just get fucking jealous.”
An uncomfortable silence lingered
for a second or two. Emily shrugged
his hand off then said, “Good,” and
started packing her things.
It was tough to keep it together.
He wanted her so bad. It sucked to
keep everything in, but…Women…
Or rather…Woman. What could he
do? Emily was his first girlfriend
ever. That she looked like a model
was super intimidating and that she
held all the cards in their relationship
was super emasculating. But Freddy
had never experienced anything like
her and he didn’t want to lose her.
It wasn’t ideal, but he had to put up

19
 Bleed For You
with whatever crap she dished out
and he had to wait for her to break it
off with Ray. He had to hang in there
and keep her happy. Evening his tone,
he let it go and asked, “We still on for
Sunday?”
“Are we?” Emily looked him in
the eyes. As sweet as she was, she was
a man-eater through and through.
“Yes.” He nodded enthusiastical-
ly. “Definitely.”
The tension flittered away and
they shared a smile. Emily shoul-
dered her bag and got up. “I better
get going.” She leaned down and
touched her amazingly luscious lips
to his forehead. “I’ll call you tomor-
row—No, tonight. Late. When I get
home, okay?”
Freddy nodded. She smiled and
then started to walk off. He called her
back. “Em?”
“Yeah?”

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
“I’ll talk to you soon.”
Emily nodded and waved then
headed for the exit.
Sinking into his chair, Freddy
closed his book and sighed. His chest
throbbed. A little thrum of pain ham-
mered with each blood pumping pal-
pitation of his heart. He muttered,
“Love you, girl,” wincing in time
with the vicious love that ate at his
soul like a cancer.
He spun his pen in his hand and
wondered what it would feel like to
jam it deep into one of his eyes.

21
 2
The Chrysalis

This LOVE shit sucked major

donkey dick. It wormed its way into
his brain and festered like an insa-
tiable, parasitic filter. Everything that
passed through it came out twisted
and raw and wrong. Freddy did what
he always did—he read and watched
movies and played video games, but
nothing resonated unless it reminded
him of her or somehow referenced

22
 Michael Louis Calvillo
unrequited love or gushy, romantic
bullshit.
He never cared about anyone like
he cared about Emily.
When he was away for doing that
thing he thought about a lot of shit
and he had a lot of time to take stock
of his emotional meter (the doctors
insisted—understanding feeling and
emotion were the keys to being dis-
charged). He loved his mama (sort of),
and his dad (sort of), and his remain-
ing grandma (sort of) and on and on
(sort of), but that was it. Sort of. They
were family, bound by blood, routines
and holidays. He had no choice but
to love them. But he did love them.
He told the doctors he loved them
and in doing so, he proved himself
capable of love. He loved. He under-
stood feeling and emotion. And they
released him back in to the wild.
But now this?

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 Bleed For You
This was way different.
This was epic.
And it hurt like hell.
And it drove him crazy.
And sometimes it made him want
to open his wrists with the Sweeney
Todd replica razors he got for a Hal-
loween costume he never wore.
He always wondered what it’d
be like to be in love, to be held, to be
kissed, but he figured his goofy face
and his odd interests would keep him
in the dark, but now here he was,
six months out of an institution, still
weird, still nerdy, but loving, and
loved in return (sort of), and it was
wonderful and hellish and scary all
at the same time.
But then, it felt SO, SO good that
little tingly worms of electric fire
danced about his nerve endings and
set his balls a-tingle whenever he
closed his eyes and thought of Em-

24
 Michael Louis Calvillo
ily’s eyes, or her lips, or her smile, or
her kiss.
Trying to finish The Bloody Count-
ess: Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory was
a damn near impossible feat. Fred-
dy read a page, two, three, then had
to flip back and reread a page, two,
three. The Countess’s story was en-
thralling stuff. She ruled a small
empire in the late fifteen-hundreds
while her husband was at war and
she did an excellent job lording over
her kingdom and mitigating matters
of the peasantry, but rumors of atroc-
ity within her castle walls brought
in Hungarian authorities. Bathory
was arrested for the murder of hun-
dreds upon hundreds of adolescent
girls. Rumor had it she enslaved, tor-
tured, and then ultimately bled them
in the hope their vitality would keep
her young. Freddy googled artist’s
renditions of the lady in action and

25
 Bleed For You
found many depicting women of all
shapes and sizes, lounging in baths
of all shapes and sizes, luxuriating
in the blood of virgins. Except now,
every time he got around to reading
the book, he’d get a similar picture in
his head—only his version featured
Emily, completely nude, lounging in
scarlet pools.
The girl would not let up.
She pirouetted through his mind,
ravaging logic and forward thought,
wrecking him from the inside out.
She smiled sensually. She kissed him
ferociously. The derailing fantasies
incited erotic overload.
He put the neglected book on his
night stand and attended to his rag-
ing boner. Emily filled his inner brain.
She took off her dream shirt, slipped
out of her dream skirt, and let him
have his way with her.
Everything got too hot.

26
 Michael Louis Calvillo
Time stopped.
Freddy tensed, ruptured, and then
softened to a guilty little lump in his
wet hands.
After cleaning up, he tried to give
The Bloody Countess another shot,
but his mind refused to buckle down.
It hiccupped and spouted image after
image of his girl out with her guy. The
scenario made him sick to his stom-
ach. He slammed the book back on
the nightstand and stared at The Tex-
as Chain Saw Massacre poster thumb
tacked to his bedroom door.
If only a crazy family would come
along, hack Ray Stern up into itty
bitty pieces, and stir him into their
prize-winning chili.

* * *

So then, Friday nights, were gen-

erally reserved for reading horror

27
 Bleed For You
novels, writing screwed up stories,
watching horror videos, surfing the
internet, and whacking off (pre-Emi-
ly he had a legion of scream queens
stored in his reptile brain), but the
past three months really threw him
off track. Dating (not dating) really
screwed him up.
Stupid ass Ray Stern was Tutnam
high’s star quarterback. The varsity
team usually played Friday nights
and though Emily had to make a sup-
portive appearance, she had man-
aged to make up an acceptable excuse
and cut out the past three weeks in a
row. Fridays suddenly became some-
thing shiny and new. They went to
a movie theater two cities over, and
then a Barnes & Noble three cities
over, and then a Scandia Miniature
Golf Course an hour up the freeway.
Each illicit moment was pure bliss.
Freddy was looking forward to to-

28
 Michael Louis Calvillo
night, but the Tutnam Tigers had
some kind of schedule change and
they played their game on Thursday
instead. Ray insisted Emily spend the
evening with him (which wouldn’t
have even been an issue if she broke
up with him like she was supposed
to). Freddy was left out in the cold.
And suddenly, staying home just
didn’t cut it. Suddenly, it felt like the
walls of his humongous bedroom (his
parents owned a mini-mansion) were
closing in on him. Suddenly, he want-
ed more. Suddenly, his room felt like
the prison it was.
He spent his entire high school ca-
reer, ninth thru the first half of twelfth
grade, in the godforsaken room (well,
except for when he was away). He
had zero friends and zero options
(partially his fault—he blew off his
geeky counterparts freshmen year
and lost any new friends after his

29
 Bleed For You
breakdown), but life was what you
made of it and he was finally coming
out of his Lexapro shell.
The chrysalis was hatching.
He started dating Emily and he
stopped taking his meds and he was
sick of wasting away among his hor-
ror idols and heavy metal heroes.
If he could hang in his room alone,
he could hang in the real world alone.
Right?
It was time to break his pathetic
exile.
What was Emily always telling
him? Get out, do something, go bowling,
have fun, live.
Live.
He liked that.
After years of wallowing in angst
it sounded right.
Abandoning the Bathory book for
a second time, he threw on a Marilyn
Manson hoodie, flashed a pair of dev-

30
 Michael Louis Calvillo
il horns at the Ministry poster tacked
above his bed, grabbed his bowling
bag, and then got the fuck out of pur-
gatory.

* * *

Make no mistake, Freddy was

a bowling god. His parents got him
started on the game at age seven and
he took to it immediately. He played
in leagues and kicked serious ass on
a number of tournament winning
teams until he hit fifteen and freaked
out and killed those kittens and pup-
pies and went crazy with feces and
got locked away in the loony bin.
Whatever.
Bowling was for dorks anyway.
He felt weird enough, he was weird
enough. Carrying around a bowling
bag or sporting bowling shoes while
asshole jocks called him a “fag” only

31
 Bleed For You
exasperated the fact. Nobody in high
school, not a soul, thought it was cool,
and even though he told himself he
didn’t care about what anybody else
thought, he couldn’t help but to feel
stupid.
Which was a horrible shame, be-
cause knocking down pin after pin
filled him with nostalgic joy. That he
still had it, that he bowled three near
perfect games, made him feel like the
biggest douche bag in the world.
What the hell was he thinking
walking away from the only thing he
was good at?
Though it sucked bowling alone,
while cheering families cheered and
groping daters groped, it felt good to
be back.

* * *

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 Michael Louis Calvillo
Cruising up University Avenue on
his faded, yellow, 1980 Honda PA50
Hobbit II moped, Freddy smiled from
ear to ear. Since he started tutoring Em-
ily, a gig his math teacher forced him
to take, the cold that roped through
his bones, and twisted his face into
a permanent scowl, and insisted ev-
eryone and everything sucked, had
begun to thaw. Maybe his therapists
were right after all. Maybe the world
at large wasn’t the problem.
Idling at a stoplight, reflecting
upon epiphany, he noticed Ray’s red,
Dodge Charger turn into the intersec-
tion and then rumble up Mountain
Street. Emily’s distinctively sexy sil-
houette blurred from the passenger’s
seat.
Tonight was the night.
Tonight she was going to dump
his ass.
He hated seeing her in Ray’s car,

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 Bleed For You
but Freddy took comfort in this be-
ing their last date; he couldn’t wait to
have her all to himself.
But then…Mountain Street led to
The Lookout. And though he’d never
actually been, everybody knew what
went down at The Lookout.
Why the hell were they going to The
Lookout?
Either Ray couldn’t take no for an
answer or Emily wasn’t keeping her
promise. Whatever the case, jealousy
destroyed Freddy’s cheery disposi-
tion and swallowed his mind. Once
the stoplight turned green, he gunned
his ancient moped and followed them
up the twisty slope.

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