Whisper

by Tal Bauer

  “Dan—”

  “I can’t compete with a ghost. I can’t compete with your complete devotion to him. And if last night sent you spinning down this rabbit hole. If being with me is such a terrible, terrifying thought for you that you had to come here, do this…” Dan took a shaky breath. “You need to get help. You need to move on. And I can’t be a part of that. You have to do that for you.”

  Kris slammed the lid on one of the file boxes. How the fuck could he move on when David was alive and out there somewhere? How could he ever let go?

  But… David had pushed him away. Had shoved him away and then fled. What did that mean?

  Did David not want him anymore?

  What had ten years apart done to David?

  What if he’d moved on?

  What if Kris really was clinging to a ghost?

  “Kris…” Dan’s voice shook. His voice never shook. Kris couldn’t face him, not now. “They called me here because you scared the techs. And you’re scaring me. Please, I’m begging you. Call someone. Today.”

  Kris stacked the file boxes, grabbed David’s autopsy report and his photo, and strode away.

  Brentwood

  Washington DC

  September 8

  1500 hours

  Brentwood hummed with urban decay, with poverty, with murders in broad daylight. Police sirens wailed at all hours. Steel-eyed residents turned inward, living behind fortressed walls and ignoring the outside world.

  Dawood had slipped into the neighborhood, setting up in a run-down motel. The neon sign buzzed, five of the lights busted and one half-sputtering at night. A pool once full was now only algae green, a swamp of refuse and beer cans. Prostitutes brought men to the rooms and gave the owner a cut of their earnings. He heard banging headboards as he made his daily prayers, heard loud moans and cries of orgasm.

  His prayers were scattered, his mind a mess. Kris was alive. He hadn’t believed the news reports, the lists of the dead he’d finally drummed the courage to search for online. Camp Carson Base Commander, Sole Survivor of al-Qaeda Triple Agent Suicide Bombing.

  How many nights had he lain awake, convincing himself he’d seen Kris’s dead body? That Kris had died in the attack?

  Fear had kept him imprisoned for years. Fear of finding Kris dead. Fear of losing what he’d found on the mountain. Fear of his sandcastle tumbling down, again.

  How many choices had been made because of the certainty of his fear, his desperation?

  How many steps along the path taken with false knowledge?

  You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

  Allah, you knew. You knew he was alive. And yet, this is the path you laid.

  He prostrated, his forehead digging into his prayer rug. Trust, trust. “Oh, Allah, I have put my trust into you,” he prayed. “Whosoever puts his trust into Allah, He will suffice him.”

  A moan sounded through the wall. Dawood breathed out. A headboard slammed, and slammed again.

  You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

  Trust in Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said. But tie your camel.

  He stood, rolling up his prayer rug and hiding it. If anyone came into his motel room, they’d find nothing but a backpack, some chewing gum, and a few changes of clothes, bought with cash from a Walmart. A bottle of water, a toothbrush and toothpaste. He was nobody. He was nothing.

  He pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket. It had been waiting for him when he arrived, waiting in an envelope at the lockers on the wharf, just as promised. Ten days at sea on a cargo ship and then another six with a smuggler, moving through international waters and dodging the US Coast Guard until they slipped into the Chesapeake and rode right up to the waters of DC.

  He texted the one number programmed into the phone. When do we meet?

  [ Soon. Your partner is on his way. Wait, and don’t draw attention to yourself. In shaa Allah, this will succeed. ]

  He rubbed his thumb over the screen, over the message. In shaa Allah.

  In shaa Allah, if only everything had been different. If only he’d known.

  But that wasn’t the path. That wasn’t the path Allah had set for him.

  You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

  Grabbing his money and his motel key, Dawood headed out.

  Crystal City, Virginia

  September 8

  1920 hours

  Kris trudged down the hallway to his door. How had everything gone so wrong? How had everything ended up upside down, backward instead of forward?

  Where did he go from here?

  Dan wanted him to get help. What did he tell a psychologist? That he’d seen his dead husband, had kissed him. But David had shoved him away and disappeared, and he had no proof, none at all, that it had ever happened?

  Maybe he should get tapes from the bar. Get a statement from the bartender. Surely, he’d remember last night. It wasn’t every day a man came apart like Kris had, all over the bathroom floor.

  If he told anyone David was back, without proof, he’d be locked away for evaluation.

  How did he find David?

  Did David even want to be found?

  What did it mean that he was a widower but his husband was alive? And not with him?

  He turned the key in his lock, shouldering open the door. He wanted to crawl into bed and wake up yesterday, before all this happened. He’d go to any other bar, any other place. Not see David. He’d go straight to Dan’s.

  No, he wouldn’t.

  He didn’t know what he’d do.

  Eyes closed, he slipped into his unit and shut the door, leaned back against it.

  “Hi.”

  His eyes flew open. His heart stopped, his lungs. His fingers scrabbled at the door behind him.

  David sat on his couch.

  Blinking, Kris looked from him to the door and back. He’d locked it. Of course he had. He always locked his door. He’d just unlocked it, for fuck’s sake. He lived in a secured building. No one was supposed to break in, ever. Certainly not his not-dead husband who didn’t know where the fuck he lived.

  “I looked you up. When I got here. I thought I would go visit your grave.” David looked away, to the empty white wall opposite Kris’s couch. “When I found out you were alive, I drove out to the house. But… You sold it.”

  “Do you think I’d really live there? Without you?”

  David swallowed. Kris watched the rise and fall of his throat, the movement of his Adam’s apple. “I tracked you down. Property records. Found out you bought this place. There are two parking spots per unit. I found my truck in one.”

  This wasn’t happening. Kris’s fingernails scraped over the door, the only sound in the studio between David’s soft words.

  “I waited until you showed up. And then…”

  “You’ve been following me?” Had he watched his unit, watched when Kris had come home the day before? And then followed him to Langley, then out to the bar? “You followed me to the bar last night?”

  “I just wanted to see your face,” David whispered. “Even in all my memories, every dream I had of you, nothing compares to the reality of you. I couldn’t ever remember you perfectly. Not the way you actually are. All your perfections, all your subtleties. The exact curve of your smile. The angle of your jaw. I just wanted to see you again.”

  “What the fuck did you think was going to happen?”

  “I didn’t think.” Finally, David looked at Kris. His eyes were fireballs, stars blazing in the dim light of his unit, the setting sun over the Capitol casting shadows over everything, except him. “I thought you were dead. You, alive… I never thought it was possible you could have lived.”

  “I never thought it was possible you lived.” Kris ripped David’s autopsy from his laptop bag and flung it across the apartment. Papers fluttered, landing upside down on the carpet in front of David. “This is how you died.”

  “It wasn’t me they burned,�
� David whispered. “The son of the internet café owner. They took him, as collateral. He—”

  Silence. Kris heard David breathe, heard the squeak of his leather couch as David shifted.

  “How did you get here? You’re dead. You couldn’t have made it through customs.”

  “You know as well as I do there are a hundred different ways to enter the US under the radar.”

  “Smugglers? Through Mexico? Canada?”

  “By boat.”

  Kris nodded slowly. Licked his lips. “Which means you’ve been in contact with civilization. Phones. Emails. US Embassies. You didn’t think at any time to try and reach out? To the CIA? To me?”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “You keep saying that—”

  “Without you, there was no point in coming back! To the world, to the CIA, to anything.”

  Damn it, wasn’t that exactly how Kris had felt? The world wasn’t worth living in without David. It hadn’t been, for a decade. He wilted, slumping, and his head thunked against the door.

  “Ever since I found out you were alive… I can’t think.” David trembled, curling forward. “Every thought I have comes screeching to a halt, crashing against the knowledge that you’re here. You’re alive. You’ve been alive all this time.”

  Two for two on that. It was like David was saying the thoughts forming in Kris’s mind. But hadn’t they always been linked in that way? Hadn’t David and he always shared a soul, shared a mind? Finished each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Would a decade apart truly change that?

  “Why are you back? Why now?”

  David inhaled, shakily. “I had to come.”

  “But why—”

  Knocking pounded on the door behind Kris. He flew forward, spinning, his heart in his throat. He was going to die of a heart attack, murdered by too many fucking surprises. Too many uninvited guests at his home. “Who is it?” he shouted.

  “Kris, it’s me.”

  Fuck. Dan. Kris’s gaze bounced from the door to David. David frowned, confusion unfurling as he stared back.

  But, of course. David didn’t know that Dan and Kris were on the cusp of something, that David had interrupted his big grand gesture to Dan, his hanging up of his jock and his condoms and trying to settle in for round two of the good life.

  “Kris… I’ve been thinking about you all day. This afternoon…. You’re scaring me, Kris. Please, let me in. Can we talk? I want to help you.”

  “I’m fine, Dan. Really. It’s okay.”

  “Please.” He heard Dan sigh. “Please, just let me see you. I’m frantic over you right now. I’m so sick, thinking I pushed someone I love into this. God, Kris, I’m so sorry—”

  Confusion on David’s face bloomed, morphing to shock, to realization. To agony.

  He had to get rid of Dan. Right now.

  “You didn’t do anything, Dan. It wasn’t you. I promise.”

  “Open the door, please. Just let me see you.”

  He made sure the chain lock was on. Reached for the doorknob and sighed. He glanced over his shoulder. David had disappeared from the couch. There was no way Dan could see over Kris’s shoulder and into his studio, could spy David back from the dead.

  He wasn’t ready for Dan—or anyone—to know, not yet.

  Maybe David would disappear again. Maybe they’d say the goodbye they never got to say. Maybe David was riding off into the sunset and Kris was just one stop on his goodbye tour. What did ten years as a dead man do to a man? Did the same person come back?

  He cracked his front door. Pressed his face into the opening. “I’m fine, Dan.”

  Dan looked him up and down, taking in his same clothes, rumpled and stained. His exhaustion, warring with the adrenaline of finding David in his apartment. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier. That I couldn’t be a part of your healing. Don’t think that I’m walking away from you. I’m not. I never will. I just want you to be okay.”

  “I’m— I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. I will.” He nodded, ridiculous bobs of his head up and down. He had no idea what he was saying.

  “Kris…”

  David appeared, hidden behind the door, out of sight. Rage thundered through his gaze, primal purpose. Lightning flashed in his eyes. “He’s busy,” David growled. He slammed his palm against Kris’s door and shoved it closed, right in Dan’s face.

  Kris heard Dan’s gasp, his choked-off shout of surprise, muffled through the closed door. “Why did you—”

  David grabbed him, spun him. Pressed him against the door. His hands squeezed Kris’s shoulders and his legs pressed against his, from feet to thighs. Every part of David trembled.

  He stared into Kris’s eyes, every emotion roiling within him laid bare. Like sixteen years before in Afghanistan, when David had finally let Kris see into his soul, had let him see how he truly felt before their very first kiss. Agony, anguish, heartache. Confusion. Anger. Need.

  Desire. Hunger.

  Love. So much love.

  Terror. Fear. He saw David’s fear spin on and on, heart-clenching, throat-choking anxiety. Was it too late? Was he too late?

  Did ten years change a man?

  Yes… and no. Kris responded to David like he always had, like part of his soul was reaching for David, like something inside of him needed to be with something inside of David. Like they were two halves of a whole, desperate to be one.

  Ten years, and he still loved David with every fiber of his being. Every part of his soul, every shattered remnant of his heart.

  And David still loved him.

  He grabbed David and pulled him close, as close as he could. David groaned, shuddering as he collapsed against Kris, as their bodies fit together.

  Hands were everywhere. Grabbing jackets and shirts, tugging, pulling, freeing skin. On waistbands, undoing pants and jeans.

  They were naked in moments, clothes scattered on the floor. Kris’s hands roamed over David’s body, over his warm, burnished skin. He knew this body, knew it inside out. Had loved it for years, and still loved him in his dreams. But there were new scars, new marks. Burns and cuts, ragged lines where the skin had been torn, healed roughly. Star-shaped bullet wounds. Ten years had not been kind to David.

  David ran his rough hands over every inch of Kris’s chest. SAD had filled him out, turned his lean body hard, made him cutting. He had scars, too, every one of them earned after David’s death, earned because Kris had wanted to feel a fraction of the agony of David’s death. He’d been reckless, so reckless. He’d wanted to die.

  “Kris,” David breathed. Their noses bumped, shared breaths mixing together. He kissed Kris’s face, his nose, his cheeks, his eyes. “Kris, please—”

  “Yes, David, yes. Make love to me,” Kris whispered.

  David backed him through his studio, through the tiny space to his bed. They kissed and never stopped, hands exploring, relearning, remapping bodies they’d committed to their hearts. Kris’s legs hit the edge of his bed, and he scrambled onto the mattress, dragging David by the hand after him.

  David surged, covering him completely, his body sliding against Kris’s, claiming him, owning him. Kris whimpered. His arms and legs wrapped around David, holding tight.

  “You’re so beautiful,” David whispered. “Ya rouhi.” He bent to Kris again, kissing him, caressing him in every way, dragging a symphony of moans and shudders from Kris.

  Kris tipped his head back, gasping for air. Everything inside of him burned, everything. His blood, his bones, his heart. His soul was on fire, every shattered piece of his heart reforging in the heat of David’s love. Nothing existed beyond this moment. Nothing existed beyond their bodies, pressed so close, locked together. Shock waves erupted from within, earthquakes in his soul that rocked in time with David’s thrusts, in time with his grunts, his breaths in Kris’s hair, his ear.

  “I love you,” David whispered. “I have always loved you.”

  “David!” Kris’s fingers dragged down David’s back, le
ft furrows in his skin. Ran over raised rough ridges, old scar tissue.

  David burrowed into Kris’s body, into his soul, into that place inside of Kris that had always and forever been David’s and David’s alone. That part of him that had always held David’s soul.

  Somewhere inside of David, part of Kris’s soul existed, too.

  David kissed his way down Kris’s throat, cradled him in his arms. Rocked forward, and pressed their foreheads together. Stared into Kris’s eyes. David dragged Kris’s pleasure out in long, languid lengths, until Kris couldn’t breathe, until his back arched and his toes curled and he screamed, yelling at the top of his lungs. It was different, God, it was so different, when there was so much love. Nothing could compare, ever.

  David held him, after, caressing him as he kept gently rocking into Kris’s body, whispering kisses and declarations of love in English and Arabic all over his skin.

  Dizzy, Kris tried to hold on to David, tried to keep both hands on his dead husband as the world tumbled, twirled away. Was this madness? He was okay with it, if it was.

  “I want to make love to you forever,” David whispered. “All night long. And tomorrow. And the day after.”

  Kris shivered, to the tip of his toes. “Why don’t you?”

  Above him, David grinned. He kissed Kris’s nose, his lips, both of his eyelids. “Okay.”

  Hours later, they finally rested.

  The bed was destroyed. Sheets lay in a pooled heap on the floor. Kris’s white bedspread was torn, more off than on. The mattress was exposed on one corner, the sheet ripped free as Kris screamed through his third orgasm, as David rode him through his second. Handprints streaked the glass mirror at the head of the bed from when Kris had ridden David slowly, an hour’s worth of heat building between them until David tipped him backward and took control.

  They lay entwined, one edge of the fitted sheet wrapped around their hips against the cold. Wet spots stained the bed, lube and everything else.

  David’s gaze flicked to the bowl of condoms beside the bed. His eyebrows arched.