The Vicar's Man-o-War is cleaning his gun. It is in pieces; heavy metal shapes spread onto the only table in our motel room.

We have been here for hours, sitting in silence. Well, except for the T.V. He doesn't care what is on, so I flip through the channels occasionally.

I'm on the bed. There is just one and I have tried to assert some feeble claim by gathering up all the blankets and such about me. It hasn't worked before, but the cocooning feels better than nothing.

I watch the glowing screen and wait for him to finish. When the weapon is whole and ready, he will bring it with him to the bed and draw it over my skin. These sheets will then unravel placidly, and he will have some form of sex with me.

I drop out of the room when this happens; the television helps.

His gun is a complicated and logical device. I've seen him dissemble and reform it countless times before. I could probably do it myself if I had to. But then I might follow through on the ritual; I might bring it close between my legs and into my mouth.

It is what he does, watching and without fail. It is as though cleaning the gun requires the fear of another to seal the ritual.

On the screen are lights and flickering phantoms. From the corner of my eye, I can see him sorting the assembly together. Those long fingers wrap about once, and then again. His head droops near the gaping void in his chest.

At gunpoint, I've had my hand inside him there; up to my shoulder into the blowhole, with his hot breath gurgling past my bare arm. I've felt the wet grip past my elbow and heard that sound below sound stirring through me.

His whalesong stays with me, though my mind tries to wander away. When I slither out my arm and submit to my own strange, sad turn - even in the most urgent and profoundly dissociative state, I can still hear his whining moans. His wailing rises over my own and then swoops low again. Who is that sorry creature hanging from his limb?

All his bullets have eyes drawn upon them. We are traveling in a car built like a thug, like a heavy fist. Outside it is parked, waiting for us to finish. It is a swollen, wine-dark wave, waiting to bear us further along. It is a machine cooling still from a night of hard driving, and it cares nothing for the soft sounds we make. The motel's neon sign warps warpaint ripples upon the chassis, darkly blue-black as lacquer.

Along with this monster and its rider, the three of us are in motion, swiftly arcing. The Vicar's Man-o-War is the last of His weapons; drawn, wielded and already cutting through the air.