by Rager, Bob
‘All,’ he thought ‘for me, just for me, only for me’.
“I’m supposed to start in a few weeks. I have to find a place to live.” He was edging close to the shoals of panic, “So I want to know, when will I see you again?”
“Yes,” said Nigel. He drank from his glass. “You’ll be reporting for duty for training. You see that, don’t you?”
What Nigel had said began to sink in, taking him further down and deeper and darker than he had ever known.
“But I can come back to see you, to…to…”
“To what, my dear boy?” asked Nigel calmly with a passing glance, patient and a little amused. “To this little town in the middle of nowhere, two hours from the nearest airport, pompous faculty knifing each other in their back over a handful of professorships.”
Nigel looked away and continued. “A haven for also rans, redundant teachers from England, amusing chaps who were never on anyone’s short list where it mattered…”
Nigel gulped back another jolt from his glass, “You don’t want to come back here, not for this,” said Nigel, sweeping a raised glass around him like a scepter, his eyes dark and haunted.
“But don’t you want me to come back?”
Nigel looked back at him.
“You are persistent, you have that already and you’ll need it. What I want for you is to work somewhere where your talents will be appreciated and put to good use. You have real talent and a nascent skill when your mind isn’t distracted by sentimentality.”
Nigel’s temper had begun to show. When it did, Nigel’s baritone became a clotted bass, the sound of Old Testament wrath that flared then was spent in an instant.
But even though Nigel was back again purring, “You’ll see, the time will fly by and, and, and…and well, you’ll forget me.
“You, like everyone else,” Nigel said. He shook his head in defeat and bewilderment.
“You know,” said Nigel. “Goodbye Mr. Chips was just a good yarn after all, just an amusing story. It’s ridiculous that some tried to make it more than what it really is; ridiculous. I understand it was very popular in America, but of course, you don’t know that. How could you; you’re too young.” Nigel stopped abruptly, then, “But not so young you can’t do a man’s job working for your country. Remember that you’ll be doing a man’s job.” Nigel smiled at the joke only he understood. His eyes again were haunted and dark.
Nigel’s words were dull and muffled.
“It’s getting late. It’s really time to call it a night, don’t you agree? Time to say good, that’s a good…”
Nigel mumbled, then “that’s a good fellow. I’ll call a taxi for you,” said Nigel, rising from his chair and taking his drink with him, and ambling off to the kitchen to use the wall phone.
He sat still in the chair; Nigel’s words, now an even fainter echo. He didn’t feel anything, he didn’t feel numb, he didn’t feel pain. He had heard that people after a head-on collision went blank and stared off faraway. He wondered what they saw.
He was hollow. Nigel’s words fading until there was silence that filled the hollowness that he had become.
He sat there for a moment in the backseat of the cab, parked at the curb in front of the chapter house. He looked at the façade, the entrance lights washing the timber and stucco exaggerating the Elizabethan fantasy as Nigel called it. He didn’t, couldn’t think about Nigel. He didn’t want Nigel intruding into this new clean hollow that was now his life.
Chapter 42
The Gods and there will be a different ending to the ritual repeated over and over again. That somehow the stale breath of the grey morning will disappear and a fresh, golden beginning will take its place, with the promise that this time it will be different.
All this he inhales in one breath, until Dale stirs from his praise. And there is someone else, a John from the looks of suit he is wearing and the scent of drugstore aftershave, a man like a plummet of smoke had drifted within an arm’s length distance.
And the scent of Dale’s body, the heat mixing sweat and tobacco and a something else – what could he call it, except the smell of the young.
Whispers drift between Dale and the wrath like outlines of the John.
Chapter 43
He wanted to stay calm, cool-headed, to collect his wits about him. ‘He doesn’t actually live here,’ he thought, keeping his face blank.
Suddenly, he wanted to take a shower, to get really clean.
For some reason he wondered what the John’s name was. Had he told him? Oh well, it didn’t really matter, that’s why they’re called John, the all-purpose name so common that its anonymity was a giveaway.
He stared at the glass of red wine, wondering if he should drink it. Why was he so cautious all of a sudden? Then he gulped and gulped, feeling a warm fullness against the back of his throat.
“There’s more if you like,” the John said. Then he sipped delicately from his glass. He chewed the wine around his mouth before swallowing it.
“Do you like it?” the John asked.
“Yeah, it’s good,”
“It’s called Petrus,” the John said.
He avoided the John’s eyes so that the John wouldn’t see the look of doubt in his eyes.
“Yeah, it’s good.”
“Nothing but the best for my very special guest,” another sip, “And do you know why you’re so special?”
“Yeah, I’m special, huh?” He met the John’s gaze evenly, instinct telling him to keep the man talking.
“I hardly ever bring anyone here, but when I do, I want to make it very special.”
“Yeah, like special requests, huh? I’m okay with that.”
“Hmmm, I don’t like feeling pain.”
“Yeah, that’s cool, man.” He looked around, “You live here alone, man?”
“Well, yes, I do. Oh, your glass is empty,” the John said, and poured from the bottle.
“This is good, man, where’s it from?”
“You’re interested in wine, I see,” the John said with a trace of amusement. “It’s from France, of course, very carefully prepared. I’m glad you appreciate it.”
“I’m trying to keep up with all the new things going on.”
The John’s brow grew dark. “Do you read the newspapers?”
“I try, but it’s kind of hard on account of I don’t have a subscription, you know? So I,” he paused, fishing for something plausible. “So I read at the library.”
“That’s commendable.”
“I guess I miss a lot though,” he forced himself to stop, not wanting to lay it on so thick that he seemed to be working at it.
“Oh, I don’t think you’re missing anything. Let’s have some music?”
The John stood up and walked to a console music system. He opened the top. On either side of the cabinet were globes covered with dark speaker cloth.
“Wow, look at that!”
“Interesting, isn’t it? It’s been re-wired, but I found the style and cabinet work amusing, Swedish, of course. They have such cool heads about this stuff.”
“Guess it’s because it’s so cold there.”
The John glanced quickly at him. “Perhaps that is true,” the John said.
Music welled up from all corners of the room, heavy with muted violins and lugubrious minor chords. ‘Part of a mass’ he thought.
“So, you know this piece?”
“Yeah, it’s classical,” he bobbed his head up and down for emphasis.
The John again glanced at him, “You have a most unusual rhetorical manner,” he said.
“Oh, you mean my accent, huh?”
“Not exactly,” the John said, drawing on each syllable. “I mean the way you return what I say. You answer the same way, words that twist around what I say twists the meaning so that you appear to misunderstand…But you don’t misunderstand me at all,” he said. He laughed a dry, crackling sound. “You have to be very clever to make it work.”
For the first time
he noticed the John’s accent, New England with time spend abroad. He had heard this before, in his overseas school; an amalgam acquired living here and there around the globe.
“Where you from, man?”
Again, the shy crackling laugh, “I’m from everywhere, like you. Everywhere I go, there you are, or someone like you.”
“Say, you been in the service man?”
“Yes, indeed. And you?”
“Yeah, man,” he said, then he told stories overhead in the bars, weaving them together to keep the John listening, to emphasize how human and real he was, not just an anonymity, nameless, and expendable. The longer he talked, the longer the John talked, the more time he had to get ready.
“So, how come you were in the bar?”
The John looked at him with heavily lidded eyes, “I find it relaxes me to…watch people.”
“You like to watch, huh?”
“You’re doing that thing again, but maybe you just can’t help it, living the way you do, coming from where you come from.”
“Yeah, I didn’t have no time for party manners in the joint.”
The John’s eyes flickered with interest. “Do you mean jail?”
“Yeah, man.”
“I imagine you were very popular in jail.” The John turned slowly to him as if hearing him for the first time.
“Well, I made a friend or two. You want to hear some of the stuff?”
The John sucked in his breath and wet his lips.
“Well, once a couple of big guys tied me down. They said they liked me that way, on my knees with my hands tied behind my way behind the laundry, where there’s a blind spot off the loading dock.
“They didn’t really rough me up. Big guys in the joint are like that, they talk big so nobody thinks they can be pushed around.”
The John closed his eyes, with a long, low “whew!”
He watched the John, feeling again that he wanted to stand under the shower, the rushing water really cleaning away the taint, but he was careful to hide behind a bland expression to avoid challenging the John. If he could get the John excited, he would get the upper hand…otherwise, he wasn’t sure what could happen.
“Yeah man,” he said, and stood up. The crotch of his jeans strained against his basket at the John’s eye level. Wordlessly, he pulled off his shirt, baring his flat stomach and ample pecks. He smiled what he called his “shy smile”, a small grin, and kicked off his black books.
The John watched wordlessly, roving here and there over what he saw. Their gaze met; he undid the button on his jeans down, careful to lift one leg at a time. He wore boxer shorts that had come down below his pubic hairline only to get snagged on his cock and balls. He wore the boxers to stretch out the reveal, to make the John wait until he was good and ready.
“Maybe I’m too much of a man for you.” He stepped out of his boxers and picked them away. “Maybe I should go and find a real man.” He heard a rapid thumping and realized his heart was pumping fast, crazy with excitement.
The John stood up, and with surprising strength, pushed up and against him; pushing until he felt his back up against the wall, the John’s hips grinding against his bare skin, the zipper of his fly cold and sharp against his balls. The zipper ripped at his skin, and to his surprise, the sensation aroused him. Fully erect now, he felt pricks of pain along the tender skin of his cock, exciting him even more.
The John ground up against him, pressing into the wall and holding them there. The John pulled back a little, still keeping him there on the wall. The John ripped his shirt off one shoulder exposing biceps thick and bulging in matted fury. Arms free now, the John flipped him around, pushing his face against bricks, pressing him into the wall, and held him there.
He felt the John fumble with something; the John’s pants sliding down against the backs of his thighs. In a frenzy, the John pushed against him again and again, finally entering him in a swift pop.
He couldn’t move; the John pulled one arm behind him and held it down in the small of his back white. He thrust again and again. Sometimes the John stopped, staying inside him, filling him with a pleasure and pain deep in his stomach. They were motionless, then the John began pumping him.
Sometimes he thought he didn’t want the John to come just yet, and then he wanted to come right now, but each time, he held himself back.
The thrusts came heavier and faster now, with gasps into his neck, and the John groaned from somewhere deep inside him. They slumped together against the wall, wobbled a moment, then collapsed onto the floor.
Although they had fallen together, the John, gone flaccid, slipped out of him. They lay nestled against each other like spoons.
He hadn’t come; the excitement ebbed and left him to wonder if the excitement had been real after all. He was eager to leave now, wanting to get out of there, to take a long, hot shower. He sat up. He felt a thick warm fluid on the backs of his thighs. ‘His cum,’ he thought in a panic. He couldn’t stay here, not anymore.
He felt cold and dressed quickly, flopping around one leg as he struggled to pull his jeans up before the John woke up, keeping one eye on the man lying silently in a heap of tangled clothes and bareness, his hardness draining away, leaving his penis shriveled and coiled. He stared at the limp organ with a cringe of disgust, thinking again of showering. He walked to the door; that had to be the fastest way to the sidewalk and the street. He didn’t want to retrace his steps back through the room, through the kitchen and through the garage. He felt uneasy about the labyrinthine route to the house and wanted to escape quickly and directly outside.
But the knob wouldn’t turn; he twisted it again and turned the bolt again. There was something wrong with the door, not just the lock.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“It’s nailed shut,” someone said behind him in that creamy accent.
He turned around slowly; if not the door, he moved to get to the window behind him. He caught his breath, a quick glance at the window and it was clear that was no good. The black bars of the window gate were even stronger than the nails pounded into the door.
The John stood there; he was stroking himself, although his face was empty and fixed, showing neither pleasure nor other awareness of what he was doing.
He was suddenly filled with disgust then fear that the John might sense his thoughts. He stood still. He couldn’t understand what the John was doing. He had come already; he had left his ejaculation all over his feet, so how could he still be jacking himself? He shuddered in fear, but he was embarrassed for the pathetic man.
The John moved in a trance, as if he were sleep-walking.
“Look at you; don’t you have any self-control, man?!”
He was shocked by his outburst, at how he didn’t care what he had said, care what the John was thinking. Suddenly, he felt angry with himself as if he were walking around ludicrous, half-dressed, exposing himself; a creepy, balding cubicle worker.
The John stopped. “What did you say?”
“I said you’re pathetic. Pathetic, man!” He shook with the force of sudden anger; angry at himself, swearing he would never be hurt again and now finding himself fucked by some man whose name he didn’t even know, this nameless stranger’s come smeared all over him. “I want to wash your stinking crap off of me.”
“You didn’t seem to mind much when I was deep in your ass.”
“That’s because you were paying me. That’s right – you think guys like me go with you for free? You think anybody’s going to let you touch them for free?”
He took a step around the John. “Now I’m getting out of
here and into a shower.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” the John said, “you fag.” The John’s voice stayed even and velvety.
A jolt of panic cut through him, and he couldn’t think. Breathing heavily, he lunged past the John, trying to find something to…he didn’t know what…to do what?
Wordlessly, the John back-handed him, spi
nning him backward; he lost his balance and tottered on one foot before falling against the wall. He felt blood suddenly wet on his mouth. Terror chocked his throat into rictus.
The john was inches away, his face frozen. He swiftly brought his knee up, punching his groin, a knife of pain and numbness stabbing his balls. He couldn’t breathe. The John twisted him around and slapped him down. He heard a quick snap of his jaw, and more salt filled his mouth. He gasped hoarsely for air.
He was disoriented by the fall. “Oh God, oh God!”
The John straddled him now, knees cutting into his ribs and pinning down his arms. From the floor, he stared up at the set lips, the expressionless mouth, the clear, unblinking eyes. The John landed blow after blow. He wasn’t even sweating.
He saw something flash in the John’s raised arm. Fascinated, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the knife.
“Yeah, why not? At last, it’s almost over,” He was babbling, his mouth full of blood. Suddenly, he rolled onto one side, trying to breathe through the blood.
He heard a scream as the knife sank into his upturned shoulder. He twisted from side to side, freeing one arm, he flailed at the air, trying to block the plunging knife. His arm burned with the agony, but he broke the John’s aim, and the knife landed beside his ear with a faint ringing.
The John blinked and stared at the knife sunk into the carpet. Everything had been happening so fast, and then everything came crashing to a sudden halt, a runaway automobile colliding with a brick wall. In another blink, everything erupted again in motion. He twisted around again and snatched the knife from the carpeting. He was too weak lying on his back, and with only one arm to fight back, but he threw the knife across the floor, into the shadowy space underneath the console.
The John stood up. Wordlessly, he walked to the console, and bending down, he groped underneath it.
He stared at the John’s back in disbelief. ‘It’s the knife!’ he thought, ‘he has to do it with the knife! It’s part of a ritual, part of a strict order of fetishes and actions.’ He had to have the knife before he could proceed.