by A. L. Mengel
Roberto followed, taking the cue he opened his door, and fell into the plush leather seat.
“Damn man!” he exclaimed, running his hands along the walnut trim console.
The interior of the car was very luxuriously appointed, dignified and fit for someone who accepted only the very best. Wood grain accented the tan leather interior, and the dashboard controls glowed a bright blue.
Antoine turned the ignition and the engine roared to life, and he sped away with a slight screech of the tires.
“Nice car, man,” Roberto said, after about five minutes of driving. Antoine did not respond, but merely nodded and guided the car through the small, poorly maintained suburban side streets of South Beach, and further west several blocks towards Alton Road. Then, further west they drove across the MacArthur Causeway over the Biscayne Bay towards downtown Miami.
“Where are you taking me?” Roberto asked.
Antoine looked over at the young man, still taken aback by his youthful beauty, and chuckled softly. “We are going, like you said, to your home.” Antoine’s eyes pierced Roberto’s. Antoine continued to stare in the boy’s eyes, drawing him in closer, until Roberto spoke.
“You watchin’ the road man?”
Antoine half smiled, and turned his attention back to the freeway. Roberto let his breath out slightly and gazed out the window, Antoine chucked softly.
Antoine’s companion looked slightly perplexed, shaking his head back and forth. “Wait a min man…what about the weed?”
“Oh, but of course,” said Antoine, smiling, bearing glistening white teeth that stood in contrast against the darkness of the car’s interior. “Of course there will be weed for my boy.”
The young man stared straight ahead into the night, falling into a short silence as his eyes remained wide and shifted around nervously - looking at Antoine and around the interior of the car.
The car charged west towards Coral Gables, as the two rode in silence for a bit.
“Yeah, I guess I did invite you to my house man. I must of. I mean, it’s the least I can do with you if you’re gonna smoke up with me.”
Antoine looked straight ahead again, and smiled. “Very good”.
Antoine knew exactly where to go.
After leaving the causeway and 395, he took 95 South to Dixie Highway, straight to the Gables. Not once did he ask Roberto where to turn, or if he was going the right way. He headed the right direction, to Roberto’s amazement. And soon, the large and elegant Mercedes pulled on onto First Street, lined with the royal palms and large weeping willow trees with hanging Spanish moss - so quintessentially southern.
The Spanish tiled roofs served as coverings for the stucco and stone compounds; some with wrap-around porches, others not. All had wrought iron gates centered in large stone fences; some had tall and imposing windows and the homes reached almost as high as the forested canopy.
And then there was the Perez Residence, just like Antoine pictured it, with giant bay windows in the front that looked like giant eyes peering out into the world, or perhaps eyes peering in to the world inside. The soaring columns, four to be exact, reached up towards the roof and divided sections of smaller windows on several different levels.
This is it, Antoine thought.
The house was a work of art.
The gigantic bay windows offered a mysterious view of the inside - silhouettes of what looked like furniture were shielded by white shears and heavy looking drawn drapes pulled to the side. The giant columns framed the expansive front porch overlooking a well-tended and well-manicured lawn with palms and tropical foliage.
Roberto’s family apparently was quite well off, and that made it all the better. Nothing but the best of surroundings for Antoine.
“And, we are here,” Antoine said as the car pulled on the side of the street in front of the Perez house. Roberto looked up from staring at his lap.
Their eyes locked in a stare.
The young man retuned his gaze to his lap and started nervously playing with his fingers in his lap like someone who was desperately searching for something to say.
“So, do you want to just go at it, or should we smoke up first?” Roberto asked, looking up at Antoine expectantly, undoing the clasp on his belt.
Antoine cut the engine, and did not answer the question.
He opened the door and exited the car, closing the door quietly. He scanned the surroundings from one end of the street to the other, and smiled and nodded in approval of the sanctity of this street. The houses stood guard against a tropical palette – the owners rarely making an appearance except in confines of large and expensive cars.
Roberto sat in the passenger seat for a while, staring out the window at Antoine. He was somewhat confused that Antoine was not making any moves yet. He most certainly was picked up tonight by this man and he most definitely was used to getting picked up night after night, but there was something different about this man. He ascertained that this man was not someone who usually would pay for his services; generally Roberto’s clientele was an anonymous drunken tourist who would hire him for a night of devilish passion while the wife was at home, assuming that her husband was on a business trip. In most cases it was true - but the increased consumption of inhibition-lowering alcohol, fueling curiosity, and meeting a lustful young Latino man on South Beach, where inhibitions typically ran low, would lead the evening into darker territories.
Antoine, however, was different.
Roberto continued staring at the beautiful, mysterious man who was patiently waiting for him outside the car, staring at the homes and looking around the area.
Someone so beautiful, and so young, certainly would not need Roberto.
Hell, this one will be for free, he thought to himself, opening the door and slowly rising from his seat to join him.
*~*~*
Roberto walked around the front of the car, as Antoine fished through his pocket. Seconds later, he withdrew his hand as Roberto stopped and stood before him in silence on the sidewalk.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Antoine asked.
Roberto’s eyes widened. “You had that the whole time?”
Antoine rose his hand, the back of his fingers, slowly and carefully, to Roberto’s cheek. He did it lovingly, like a father caressing his son.
Roberto initially pulled back. But after a few minutes, he let Antoine touch him, and closed his eyes, and let out a faint sigh.
“Come with me,” Antoine finally said, after a moment of silence.
Antoine started down the path towards the house, and guided him down the rosebush and orange tree-lined path to the majestic front door. Wall sconce lamps lit the area with gas-lamp posts rising and burning from the bushes, creating a warm glow. It was, to put in words, quite elegant.
“Come with me,” Antoine said again.
They ascended the stairs to the entryway. Standing before each other, Antoine gave the rolled joint that he had in his pocket to Roberto, and smiled. Roberto looked into Antoine’s eyes, and then down at the joint, reaching out for it, cautiously, as if it were something foreign and unknown; taking the joint, he started examining the drug quizzically and with wonder, like a child – as if he had never seen something like it ever before. He took it from Antoine’s strong, gentle hand, and held it in his palm, staring at it for several minutes before placing it in his pocket.
“Thanks man,” he said. He fumbled in his jeans pocket for his keys, and they jingled against the still, quiet night as he turned the lock and opened the door.
It was dark and quiet in the house. Very still.
“No one is home,” he said. “My dad is out of town and my mother is dead.”
He entered the foyer, stepping over a copper crest of a lion at the threshold.
The floors were marble, and there was a Persian Rug in the foyer, with a dark stained mahogany round table in the center adorned with fresh cut white roses on the top with another bronze crest of a lion on the center pedestal.
Ahead, there was a mirror on the right and a long hallway that led back into a dark mysterious existence. To the left was a grand set of winding stairs that gracefully hugged the rounded wall up to a second level of darkness. Looking up, Antoine noticed a grand crystal chandelier hanging majestically above them.
The interior of the mansion seemed very stately and had a southern feel to it – not the upscale contemporary motif that Antoine had been expecting.
It was perfect.
Roberto now took the lead, as Antoine was mentally noting all that would soon be his. Roberto disappeared into the black hallway before them. Shortly after, a light snapped on with the quiet click of a light switch, illuminating a hallway with walls the color of deep red maroon blood and lined with large potted palms and old black and white photos from years past.
Observing Roberto, Antoine followed as the young man disappeared in a white door at the end of the hallway which Antoine deduced was his bedroom. Antoine followed, arriving inside the room just as Roberto flicked on a small table lamp next to the bed.
The bedroom was like that of any young guy. The music discs that lined the wall were located next to an over-the-top stereo system - with giant, towering black speakers in each corner of the room and a subwoofer that most likely drove his father crazy. On the other wall, a large bed, a red and yellow lava lamp, and posters the plastered almost every square inch of the walls. The floor was covered in clothes. On the opposite wall of the stereo, a massive computer system atop a desk with a cluttered sea of papers and data discs.
It wasn’t a moment after they entered the room and closed the door that Roberto peeled off his shirt. Antoine stood and observed, hands folded in front of him, studying the man. What a specimen! Underneath Roberto’s shirt was a sleeveless white tank-top, which hugged him tightly, accentuating a very well developed and quite muscular chest. His arms were also quite muscular, and he gave a short flex of his bicep, pointing out the tattoo of a rose, and smiled.
Antoine sighed.
The poor young man was missing the point, but it was to be expected. The purpose of bringing him along and coming here to his room was not to bed the man, as Roberto seems to be so clearly expecting.
But Antoine continued his gaze nevertheless.
Roberto removed his undershirt, and Antoine began to drink and lap at the fountain of Roberto’s sexual lustful aura. He was gorgeous and muscular, a perfect male specimen. The type of body that men would love to have, and that women love to be with. Top form, exquisite definition – clearly built like a god.
Perfect.
His pants came off and he stood there in tight, brilliantly white underwear that reached down his thighs.
He looked over to Antoine, who still was fully dressed. He did not come here for a sexual escapade. Roberto then walked over to him and put his arms around him, in a childlike embrace, as if he were hugging his father, and Antoine returned the affection.
He placed his head on Antoine’s chest, closed his eyes, and sighed.
Not before long, Antoine could hear him softly crying.
They hugged tighter.
“I know what type of life you have led, Roberto,” Antoine said, soothingly. He caressed Roberto’s face, tousled his hair, and at those words, the young man cried a little harder, a little more audibly, knowing all too well what has been his childhood.
Antoine smoothed Roberto’s hair. “I know how hard it has been.”
Antoine knew.
He knew everything about Roberto.
In this elegant embrace, where Roberto felt so utterly the pain of his existence, of his past, he felt, at first and for the first time in his life, he could be in the arms of a savior.
He cried, and let it all go. All the pent up frustrations, all the pain, came out, pouring onto to Antoine’s shirt – as he pressed his face deeper in his chest.
And the young man just cried, sniffling and sobbing and crying some more, as Antoine continued holding him, squeezing his back, running his hands through his hair, and along his cheek.
Antoine closed his eyes, held Roberto closer, continued lovingly caressing him, and all the pain of a mother that he lost far too soon, and a father that would not accept him as a son, as who his son was, wet the material on Antoine’s shirt and coat.
Roberto felt so content in Antoine’s arms, it was like everything would be okay.
The boy continued to cry, but now more softly, and Antoine got a better perspective of his past the longer he held Roberto.
He better understood the reasons for his tears.
He knew about Roberto’s violent father - who dutifully provided for his son - but also who has recently scorned him. He saw the same father who beat his son after hours of questioning and drilling when Roberto would come back later than his curfew.
But, it was recently that things became worse.
Roberto had never been very close to his father, and he became more distant and reserved in recent times. Roberto also spent a lot of time away from his father and the house, because he knew that every time he came home the talking led to arguing, the arguing led to anger, and the anger led to a beating of some kind.
Antoine saw all of this as he held and caressed Roberto, letting his tears flow all down the front of the black coat, wetting it, but whispering into Roberto’s ear that all will be okay and that no one will hurt him anymore.
Roberto hugged Antoine tighter, and Antoine thought he heard the boy whisper “I Love You” in his ear, barely audible through the tears.
And at the same time, Roberto bore his body down closer and pressed it against Antoine’s, and Antoine could feel his hardness press up against him. Roberto started to kiss Antoine on the neck, causing an electricity to run through Antoine’s body like nothing he had felt in a long time - not since he had been mortal.
It was such a wonderful feeling! Oh, it had been years since Antoine had felt this, and he was taken back to the blissful night in the clouds. It did not matter that Roberto had been so terribly misguided.
What a beautiful night it was, what a beautiful night it is.
What a beautiful night…
Roberto’s kissing intensified and he started to move upward, moving towards Antoine’s lips, and Antoine stopped him. Roberto opened his eyes and looked up, as if to ask why he was being stopped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Isn’t this what you met me for?”
Antoine did not answer right away, but simply closed his eyes, and breathed a quiet sigh.
“Roberto,” he finally spoke. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes!” he answered quickly and eagerly, shaking his head to reiterate his response. Roberto’s eyes were so wide with pleading that he looked like a child to Antoine, staring up at his ebony face, desiring the intimacy that mortals crave.
But, Antoine knew that this was not the type of intimacy that Roberto was seeking.
He could tell, and see it in his mind, his past, where Roberto’s experience was not that of a loving and caring intimacy, but rather that of forced sexual intercourse, not necessarily that of a raping but rather a situation that Roberto did not necessarily want to be in.
Perhaps he felt that way because of a suppressive father who physically and verbally abused him on many occasions, and that he was sinking into a rough, unforgiving, underground homosexual existence - where he was the pretty boy who was there to please all who beckoned.
“I don’t think it is what you want, my dear son,” Antoine said, drawing Roberto’s face closer to his, and planting a kiss on his forehead, in a sweet, loving manner. “I know how it was for you. This is a cold, cruel and unforgiving world. You don’t need to do that with me, because I know it is not something that you really want, deep down, inside your heart.”
Roberto began to cry again, letting out the pain.
“You will never have to doing anything like that with anyone that you don’t want to do anymore,” Antoine said.
They hugged closer and tight
er, and Roberto softly cried in Antoine’s arms, but the more he sobbed and the more Antoine caressed him, the more the pain began to drift away. And a nice feeling of contentment began to overtake him, and soon, the tears started to fade away, a slight smile started to form on Roberto’s face, a faint, content smile. And then, Antoine heard the three words this time, even as thunder rumbled in the distance at the exact moment the words were quietly and faintly spoken.
I love you, dark lover.
*~*~*
Antoine tightened his embrace; he now had his child.
It was ready and it was done.
Growing slowly out of his clothes, his limbs elongated, and increased to a monstrous muscularity; his fingers lengthened; spiny with black pointed tips. His skin turned a greenish black, was leathery and scaly, and his hair shortened and his head elongated and the crown spiked.
He opened his eyes – for a moment – and stared at the door.
He had the face of a wolf, a face which was that of a man and also of a demon, with razor sharp teeth and saliva dripping to the floor.
But Roberto did not cry out in fear, he did not falter nor did his embrace ever loosen.
Before Roberto it stood, a monster readying to create his one and only child.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“And there you have it. That is how I became what I am today.”
The fire crackled once again, but it was dying slowly. It had not been stoked in a while. The rain, eased up a little from before, pelted gently across the windowpane as some thunder rumbled in the distance. Antoine arose from his chair, and walked back over to the window. He stared out into the night.
“It was truly a magnificent feeling, to change like that,” he said, not breaking his stare. “It was nothing like I had ever experienced before, and nothing that I have ever experienced since.”
“What did you feel?” Sheldon asked, leaning forward in his chair, straightening his notebook on his lap, clearly interested in what Antoine had to say.
“It really is hard to describe it in mortal terms,” Antoine replied, pausing for a moment, stroking a small tuft of hair on the end of his chin, appearing as if searching for an analogy.