by Rodd Clark
He stood there watching the bathroom fill with muggy heat, rubbing his crotch front to remind himself of the fabric straining against this own fully engorged member. Was he that fucked up that he’d consider throwing himself at a man who had so easily killed so many folks across this country? Apparently so, he reasoned . . . because he hadn’t moved yet.
His face was flushed as he stared at the open bathroom and quizzed himself what he thought was going to happen there. But he could hear the man moving around under the water’s spray and the image was impossible to lose. Fortunately, before he could decide what actions, if any, he would take, the water stopped, and he could almost sense the water dripping from every sinewy bit of flesh. The door opened, and the man stepped out but didn’t hear the tiny gasp from his writer as he reached for a towel.
He turned and smiled as he caught sight of Christian standing there dumbly. When he did, the author seized on the idea that it was all just a game the killer was playing. He had somehow read Christian too well. He had surmised the desires that had unwittingly surfaced. Gabe made no attempt to cover his nudity; instead, he stood there grinning sheepishly and then toweled off his full head of hair and just quietly asked, “So is the grub here yet? I’m feeling a bit hungry, are you?”
The question was laced with hidden meaning, and sudden awareness hit him hard. He was forced to fumble embarrassingly with the answer. “No. Not yet, but soon.”
“If you wanted to shower, you could’ve just asked?” Church’s terminal smile was still present as he finally covered his manhood by wrapping the towel around his waist and brushing past Christian with a soapy scent wafting to his nose.
Christian barely stepped aside in time, but the closeness was an erotic explosion to a man who’d never been intimate with another male. “Excuse me” was all he could mutter from tightly wound vocal cords, and he walked into the room as if he had been headed to the john all along. It was a ridiculous attempt at recovery, but given his choices, it was all he could muster.
He stood with his back to the killer, dick in hand, hoping it would become flaccid enough to allow him to piss. He was embarrassed and twitchy, and guessed he wasn’t hiding anything very well. This wasn’t what he’d originally intended. He had wanted to keep a professional distance from his subject—the book required it. And now the man held power over him, and that wouldn’t be good for any effective resolution to the novel.
“Just to be clear, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re queer you know?” Gabe’s words were like ice swords slicing through his muscle and vital organs. Losing his grip on his cock, his stream of urine went wild and splashed across the bowl, hitting the floor.
Well, somebody else would be cleaning that up.
He had turned to stone right there, unable to move. It wasn’t that someone else had made realizations about him . . . it was that he hadn’t. The ideas hadn’t been completely baked yet, and he was already hearing the word queer—what the fuck did that mean? He could have turned around and feigned being aghast at the notion, but he’d already heard some horrific tales from the serial killer’s tongue. He’d remained steadfast and passive at worse atrocities. The stories he had already jotted down could have brought a strong man to his knees. How could he hold any pretense that he wasn’t gay or that the murderer’s intuition hadn’t been spot on?
All he could do was drain his bladder and zip up and turn around.
“Why don’t you tell me where in your story you want to go next?” He swept past the killer who had never even tried to get dressed—Church’s pants lingering on the floor of the bathroom. But Christian caught his knowing expression as he slipped by, and both men begrudgingly decided to move ahead without a discussion on the obvious tension between the two.
Back at the table where he’d been writing, he pulled the notepad back—it was his shield. His hands were visibly shaking; the only way to disguise that was with constant movement.
“If you want people to reason you’re not insane, we have to explain your motivations for murder.” Christian offered with a noticeable waver in his voice.
“Let’s face it. No one’s gonna root for the killer in this tale . . .” Church had already slipped into his jeans but remained barefoot and sockless, and although he’d grabbed his shirt from the bed, he hadn’t put it on. The room was ripe with the stifling pressure of testosterone, and it didn’t look as if it was going to get any easier. Before the two could settle the mood, there was a knock at the door, which startled them both, and they turned to each other in surprise before remembering it was room service with their lunch. Christian swept to the door to find an attractive younger man dressed in a hotel service worker jacket and jeans. He stood before a cart with a covered tray. There was a pitcher and glasses as well as a bucket of ice and bowls of sugar and cream. The Mayflower did it right all the way to the end, thought Christian.
Church had made no attempt to get more dressed; his broad chest was still damp from the shower and covered in a fine mist of hair. It was unsettling to Christian to have the bellhop there while he was in a hotel suite with a half-dressed man in the middle of the afternoon. It appeared in flagrante delicto to some sexual tryst he may have arranged midday, with a stranger he’d met online. It was embarrassing, and he caught himself glaring at Church across the room and hating him for his unabashed lack of concern for his own reputation. Church on the other hand looked nearly giddy with the prospect of having someone think he was getting lucky in the afternoon, even if it was with a man. He played it up like a child trying to shock their parents. He walked over and grabbed a sandwich off the tray and bit into it with a grin that nearly screamed how famished he was from an exhausting round of fucking and sucking.
Christian signed the bill and attempted to hurry the young bellhop out the door with a neatly folded twenty pressed into his hand, obviously uneasy. He was coquettish and that grin of suspicion never left his face as he backed the empty cart into the hall and disappeared behind the closed door of room 1512. This didn’t help the image or lessen the rumor and speculation against the actual events.
“That was awkward . . .”
“You actually care, bud?” Church had picked up on the writer’s embarrassment. He seemed to enjoy ribbing the younger man at every turn. “Who gives a shit what that little twat thinks. So he suspects we’re up here fuckin’ . . . Who cares? Do you, I mean, really?”
Christian occupied himself with pouring two glasses of iced tea and shaking several sugar packets with one hand. “But we weren’t doing it,” he said as his voice trailed off like a little kid’s.
“And whose fault is that?” The words slapped Christian hard as he turned to the killer. He found him as he usually did, smiling that devilish grin with that secretive twinkle flashing in those damned pale blue-gray eyes.
“Here,” he said, handing a cut crystal glass of tea to Church. “Let’s get started. We’ve had enough distractions.”
Church assumed a spot in a side chair with a sandwich in one hand and his glass in the other, while Christian sat at the table again and turned on the recorder and pulled his notepad closer.
“Let’s revisit those early days,” he said, “back to where you had decided early on to kill. I’d like to explore your motivations for murder . . . with a more in-depth explanation.”
“We can,” Church said while munching on his club sandwich, “but no matter how we cover it, it will still be something elusive to the readers of your book.”
Church had settled into his story. You could see the mechanics of his memory turning the gears in his mind. His expression became remote as he placed himself back inside those early days. His typical smile had melted into a slight sneer. With every memory there was something akin to shame carried with it, and he began his tale before California, and that second, pivotal murder.
GABE’S SPEECH had become a towrope that dragged the tale of his life. He was pulled along like something caught in the wake. It was a story he could explain but not control
. Before California and before the murder in East Texas, he had found his escape from his father and sister and mother. He had left home at his earliest possible chance and taken to the road to find something that comforted him. It had been hard days back then, a struggle to survive, and yet it was wrought with challenges. It was the greatest point in his life because he was doing it alone with his own skill and acumen.
This was back when he had the Chevelle, and he’d filled it with gas and thrown enough clothes into the trunk to head out in search of adventure. He had kissed his sister once on the cheek, knowing he might never see her again, then waved goodbye to his mother and the man she still lived with, Bennett Church.
The first thing he noticed about freedom was his fight for food and shelter. He slept many nights in his car, he stole whenever the opportunity arose, and when it didn’t, he settled somewhere long enough to find passable employment for a time, just to earn the money to carry him to the next town and future endeavor. He worked a week or so to make the next few tanks of fuel and oil. There were many lazy afternoons spent killing time at national parks and on lakefront campsites or down deserted rural roads, barely drivable. All to keep under the radar and away from those who might mistake him as homeless. In his mind his home was wherever he wanted it at that particular moment in time.
It was at one of those lakefront campsites on a Sunday afternoon in the first few months of his journey where he first considered murder. He’d parked just off the roadside, on a slight rise of land that overlooked the lake. It was a beautiful afternoon, warm enough to consider swimming, but cool enough to know that you shouldn’t. There was a crisp, freshness that afternoon, and Gabe had been sitting in his car with the driver’s door open and the radio playing while he ate a convenience store burrito he’d purchased for his lunch.
Another car came around the bend. It was an ancient black pickup truck; years of abuse dinged at its sides and along the wheel-wells. Paint was chipped and fading, and it appeared one light was so foggy with age that it might not even shine with sufficient light anymore. Gabe took no heed of the truck, assuming it was someone who was coming out to fish for flathead catfish or smallmouth bass, or possibly a driver from the interstate who’d pulled off just to take a piss. But his concerns were raised when the pickup chose to park next to the Chevelle instead of passing him on the bend or choosing any other campsite close by. It was always unsettling for him when someone chose to be close to him or invade his very personal space.
Gabe could see the driver. He was a man in his late thirties by the look. He had a decidedly local feel, farmer or trucker type, and by the smile he offered over as he turned off his engine and parked, he looked dense and uneducated. Gabe nodded once in his direction, wondering why out of all the possible places to park, he’d chosen a location so close to another vehicle. Turning his attentions back to the serenity of the water, Gabe bit into his tiny burrito and then finished the rest in a single bite. Glancing back he could see the pickup truck’s driver was still staring at him, and he still had that ridiculous grin on his hayseed face.
Gabriel Church wasn’t a stupid man; whatever he had not been granted with, he had learned quickly in his travels. He surmised this must be a secluded location where closeted queers met up for sex. By the hungry look on that older man’s face, he had unwanted designs on him and his junk. It was aggravating knowing that he was perceived as being someone looking for sex just because he had unwittingly chosen a nice spot to park and kill time with his lunch. He didn’t even know what the sick fucker would expect of him—he wondered what the protocol was for such weirdness. Was he expected to pull out his wanger and flash it like some waving checkered flag: Pull over here to get on top of this cock?
Was he expected to trail off into the underbrush, expecting the driver to follow? What did fags do once they were alone; did they paw at each other like hungry lovers? Did they drop their pants and just wait for someone to climb aboard and slobber on their knobs? He had to wonder if he himself had a stench of queer on him. Why else would someone mistake him for someone who’d want cock? But the black pickup’s driver still sat smiling off a few yards away, and both seemed to be waiting for some signal to announce their intentions, some opportunity to occur that might create their race at each other with open arms, like paramours who hadn’t seen each other in months.
The fury in his chest was growing. He was angry at the queer who’d perceived him as an equal and pissed off at having his isolation invaded, his mood altered. He wanted to harm the man with some degree of force. The picture of him throttling the stranger by the neck finally brought that smile back to his face. Regrettably the other driver mistook that as some form of proposition and opened his truck door and stepped out. He was braving to come over, thought Gabe. This angered him even more. Before the man could reach his car the younger man opened his own door and started a brisk walk into the direction of the tree line and the cover of bramble and overgrown field grass.
The bigger driver seemed to follow him because Gabe could hear his heavier footsteps in the weeds behind him. He gingerly moved overhanging limbs and thorny vines from his path and headed deeper into the overgrowth. He scanned the area looking for a less dense patch of earth, some soft spot where he and the man could meet face to face. The birds flew off from their nesting spots in the grassy knolls just ahead, and the sounds of breaking twigs and destroyed leaves were like an echo through the silence. He was definitely in the thick of it, so to speak. The shadier area of foliage had cooled the air against his skin. He was electrified at the sensation at being trailed into the brush by someone who wanted to suck his dick, even though he only wanted to hurt the fucker who trespassed his world.
Finding a clearing, he stopped but could hear the man still lumbering through the woods to where he stood. He turned and saw the look of anticipation on the stranger’s face. He was just as titillated as Gabe, just for separate reasons. He looked as if he was already salivating—he wanted the younger stud that much it was apparent. He had to bend and lean this way and that to miss the prickly vines and curtain of growth. But as he walked up with a sadistic smile, he was already nervously fumbling at his belt buckle.
This was alien to Gabe, and like most new experiences, he watched those moments around him with curiosity. He was fascinated by the etiquette and decorum of it all. This was a not-so subtle dance of the disreputable, twisted fuckers who spent their days looking for sex or drugs or captured by stronger influences of drink or gambling. Standing facing the big man, he didn’t move a muscle. He was awestruck by the palpable impression of it all, the man had unbuckled his belt and flipped open his jeans. He was noticeably aroused, and the look on his face seemed to implore the younger man to follow his suit. Gabe assumed some of the thrill must come with the fear of being arrested, but it was a desolate stretch of bramble by an isolated area of an infrequently visited lake. It was asinine to assume that arrest was a prospect. But then again, maybe it was fear of getting your teeth knocked down your throat as other redneck assholes would break the stillness by rushing up from behind to fag-bash some unfortunate stranger who’d fallen into some honey trap where the bait had been eight inches of hard shaft.
Gabe was so intrigued by the unfamiliarity of it all that he halfway considered allowing the man to suckle on his dick, but he had no desires to reciprocate and didn’t relish what other twists may follow. Moving with surprising speed, he advanced onto the stranger and grabbed him by the shirt and threw a hard right, pointed to his jaw. He had struck the man so unexpectedly that the lustful fellow was caught off-guard. Gabe was strong and young and accustomed to fighting. His blow nearly brought the man down with a single punch. The man staggered back, making grunted noises of surprise while spittle and blood flew like wayward bullets from his lip and nose. It dawned on Gabriel he’d never had occasion to fight while sustaining an erection, and wondered what it must be like to be in the man’s shoes—dick and man both surprised by the attack. He wondered which would go down
first.
Once the pickup’s driver went down, Gabe lit into him with all his might. He struck the man even though he was down and had raised his hands to both protect himself from the blows and show willing surrender. Gabe kicked him in the side, making contact with his kidneys and his vital insides. The man rolled accordingly as each boot found their mark, and he doubled over on his side to shield himself further. The entire assault took only minutes, but it left the ground covered in blood as the man was bleeding from a gash on his head. Gabe had to pull himself back mentally or risk killing the man with each forceful kick and swing. The man was breathing heavy, and the gurgle of blood in his mouth bubbled up and out. Gabe had said nothing while he attacked the man, he didn’t scream “fag,” didn’t make threats of harsher abuse yet to come. He was quiet and reserved throughout the man’s painful ordeal. After driving himself to stop his violence, he was left standing over the figure of a man in hurt. He would live, but only if Gabe walked away.
Leaving the man huddled in the clearing making god-awful noises of agony, Gabe made his way back to the Chevelle and drove away. He wasn’t exactly sure why it had happened, but it felt satisfying. He gained some reward from it that was neither vengeance nor sadism. Even without words of ample description, he knew it was something he would do again—it had given him a rise in his jeans front and become something rather titillating. It teased at him that there was more to follow, and as he pulled onto the interstate and headed out of town he felt not a single remorse for what had occurred.
Recalling the story in the Mayflower Park for Christian, he had found himself absently rubbing at his own crotch. By the time the realization hit him that he was even doing it, he was captured with that notion that maybe there was something inside him that intermingled violence with sexuality. He noticed that Christian had noticed his random stroking of his jeans, and he grinned at him from the comfort of his overstuffed chair.