Proust is a slow read. I’m about to take a break by checking e-mail, then think better of it. Instead I take my port onto the front porch, sit on the front step, and look out over the Potomac Highlands, slopes rising and falling like the chart of a heart. I listen to Bob and Kurt making love yet again, tugging on myself beneath my kilt till their moans reach a climax and then shift eventually to snores. I stay on the porch step till dewfall, then walk around back, moist grass tickling my toes. A tree frog is chirping somewhere. In the stone circle I sit cross-legged, leaning against the base of the cross, and masturbate.
Back to back, Angus and I have fought our way almost to the top of the crag, but the soldiers keep coming. We can only hold them back for so much longer. Behind us, I hear the sea far below.
Then the slope beneath our feet levels out. I look back and choke. There are only a few flat and rocky yards between us and the edge.
One of the soldiers lunges at me with his bayonet, but I dodge and plunge my dirk into his belly. He shrieks and flails, topples backward, taking a few of his comrades with him, but they are rapidly replaced by others. Angus is muttering curses. He swings his great two-handed claymore and clears a momentary swath before the gap fills with more redcoats.
I have read enough history to know of the Sacred Band of Thebes. The army composed of male lovers, whose passion for one another gave them courage. What warrior would be a coward in his lover’s eyes? But Angus and I are only two, not a band.
“We’ve got to jump, Derek!” Angus shouts, swinging his sword again.
I look back once. The sky is a misty rose-orange, the hue it takes after a storm over the sea. Again I hear the waves crashing below. Does the sea run deep here, a blue-gray depth that would receive us, buoy us up? Or is that the sound of waves breaking against rocks that would rend us?
I run another redcoat through, shove him down the slope to dislodge yet more of his shouting companions, then look at Angus. Even in this extremity I notice with pride how thick his arms are. His right shoulder has been slashed and runs with blood.
He meets my eyes. He knows I am afraid. He takes out another swath of soldiers, then turns to me. “We can’t be cowards, Derek,” he gasps. “You know how to swim. I taught you. I know this coast. Trust me.”
I nod. We turn toward the edge of the cliff. Mist is gathering over the sea at our feet. Behind us, a sudden silence falls. When I look over my shoulder, I see that the horde of soldiers has frozen. As if Angus and I had just peacefully ascended the slope of an Arcadian sculpture garden.
Angus drops his sword and grabs my right hand. I rest my left on his bloodied shoulder. For a few seconds, we look into one another’s eyes. “Got to go forward,” he grins, giving me a quick kiss before pulling me over the edge.
Damn it! Again I’m gingerly rubbing my forehead, which has just slammed against the coffin lid. I’ve been watching too many of Bob’s adventure films. It’s a clichéd cross between Braveheart and any number of Westerns.
There’s no one in the house. Bob left for Rehoboth this morning. He and Kurt will probably spend the entire week fucking and never make it to the beach, I reflect jealously, settling back into the darkness and arranging the tartan blanket about me.
Matt’s cornered. There are five of them brandishing clubs and jagged-edged beer bottles. He takes out two, his big fists hammering their stupid faces, before two others grab his arms and hold him against a yellow-brick wall. He curses and spits, struggles and kicks.
Why am I watching this without trying to help? Because it’s not quite dark, I realize. There’s a shaft of sun spilling over the scene, that last orange arrow the sun releases before dusk descends. I’m cowering in this tabernacle of shadows, shadows which are expanding toward Matt and his attackers, but not fast enough. The light recedes with maddening slowness.
I inch forward. Only a few more feet, the darkness in this alley will be complete, and then I will break their windpipes between my fingers, snap their sternums like stovewood.
The quotation’s from Romans this time—“receiving that recompense of their error which was meet!”—as the ostensible leader shoves a hunting knife into Matt’s belly. He hangs there in his captors’ arms, stunned for about five seconds, the blood gushing over his T-shirt and belt, down the front of his jeans. Then, by God, he’s cursing them again. They drop him to the pavement, kick him a few times, then scuttle off down the alley. “God damn you!” he shouts after them, one last curse before he rolls on his side and begins gasping.
The sun’s gone. Too late. I fall to my knees before him. Not again. Not again. He looks up at me dimly. “Too damned late, Derek.” I lie beside him on the pavement, pull his back against my chest, and kiss the back of his neck, counting his last breaths.
The sun will find us together at dawn.
I do not leap awake this time. I lie there in the darkness of my coffin, breathing heavily, wiping the sweat from my mustache. A few crickets are chirping in the basement. The field mice Bob can’t seem to get rid of are gnawing potatoes in the root cellar.
I get up, straighten my kilt, and order the mice out. Upstairs, all is dark, save for the desk lamp in my study, which Bob has left on. Complete silence, just the way I like it. I walk from empty room to empty room. I leaf through one of Bob’s Leather magazines, pick up and put down Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Then I remember my promise to keep up the garden in Bob’s absence.
“The damned raceweed, the damned lamb’s quarter, the damned crabgrass,” I’m muttering to myself as I bend and pluck black weeds that are no doubt bright green by day. “Weeding lettuce by starlight. Sounds like an unusual country song. Maybe Matt could write it for me.”
Discounting the usual slew of questions from those who run the publishing company in my absence, there’s only one message on my Yahoo account today:Damn, Derek,
Great to get your note. I’d just about given up on you. Come
on down to the bookstore tomorrow night. Jonathan and Ken
and me will play you a few songs.
Gonna wear your kilt? Woof, woof!
Bearhugs, Matt
P.S. Thanks for the song title. Maybe I’ll even work up some
lyrics by then.
I’m afraid to meet Matt while I’m hungry, so I mist into Joe the Hot Cop’s apartment on the way to Eppson Books and silently materialize. He’s already sprawled in jockey shorts across the bed, snoring softly—must have worked a late shift last night. There’s a black sunburst tattooed on his left shoulder, which I bend down to gently touch. Now I’m easing down onto the bed behind him, and before he realizes what’s happening, I’ve wrapped my arms around his arms, my legs around his legs. Again I clamp one hand over his goateed mouth, ostensibly to silence that first shocked shout, but actually because we both enjoy it. He grunts in surprise, writhes with resistance against my grasp. Then, blinking his long-lashed blue eyes, he’s suddenly and happily oriented to his surroundings. Instead of struggling, he begins to lap my palm and grind his ass against my groin. I rub my beard along the top of his shiny bald scalp for a good minute before tugging down his briefs, moistening both of us with spit, roughly pulling his head back, baring my fangs, and simultaneously entering him at both ends.
I’ve missed the first set again. By the way Matt’s face lights up when I enter the café, I can tell he was convinced I’d stood him up. There’s no place to sit, so I snap a mental finger, as it were, and immediately a teenaged boy with spiky hair leaves his seat and wanders confusedly from the room.
“Now, folks, you all’ve got to forgive this next one. It’s sorta sappy. Reminds me of Robert Burns a little, and that reminds me of Scotland and a sexy Scot I’ve been pinin’ over. It’s an old folk song called ‘The Lover’s Farewell.’ I’ve been playin’ it a lot this summer, feelin’ all pathetic and blue. Boy, celibacy can really make a man whine.”
“Testify, brother!” pipes in Jonathan the banjo player. Several men in the crowd guffaw. “Aaarooo!!” one blond-be
arded cutup howls like a blue-tick hound.
“Git that bird-dawg outta here!” Matt laughs. “Anyway, with any luck, after tonight, with that hot Scot around, maybe I’ll lay off the sad songs for a while.” Matt looks at me, his band buddies grin, and I try to look innocent. I’m very glad I didn’t wear my kilt tonight.
Matt’s Martin guitar starts in, a slow strum. E-minor, one of my favorites. We Highlanders are supposed to be melancholy. “Dour” is the word folk always use. And hell, he’s got another tight T-shirt on, “West Virginia Mountaineers.” No surprise, he’s a football fan.
Fare thee well, my own true love,
Fare thee well for a while.
I’m goin’ back where I came from
But I’ll come back again
Even if I go ten thousand mile.
Bright day will turn to night,
The rocks melt in the sun.
The fire will die and turn to ash,
The chilly sea will burn.
Great Herne, the boy is a sentimentalist. He seems a little embarrassed and won’t meet my eyes now. He’s hunched over his guitar, fellating that microphone the way he does, his thick brown hair falling over his eyes. Thank the gods I fed first.
Oh don’t you see that mournin’ dove
A-cryin’ on the trumpet vine?
It’s mournin’ the loss of its own true love
And tonight I mourn for mine.
The last chord’s another minor nine. It sounds like the autumn mist looked, drifting down Mull’s glens that day Angus and I argued, a few years before he died, that day he left for Craignure without me, and I thought it was over between us.
The usual whooping applause from another audience of Bears, plus, to my surprise, a few drag queens, one with a tiara a good two feet tall. How does she go out in public without being bludgeoned, I wonder, reminded that butch boys don’t have a patent on courage. For a few minutes I’m fondly remembering the Stonewall Inn, its ass-kicking queens, before Jonathan’s banjo starts into “The Unquiet Grave” and I sit back to listen.
“Sorry I didn’t have ‘Weeding Lettuce by Starlight’ ready for you,” Matt apologizes as he sits heavily in the chair I offer him, his last set over. “Maybe we can work your garden together sometime. I got me a little patcha things out on my back patio here in Charleston, and back home my Daddy has a huge garden down by the Greenbrier River, so I got some experience in pickin’ off potato beetles and such like.”
“Well, you’d have to do it shirtless,” I demand. I’d forgotten how he smells. Musky, spicy. I want to know how his armpits taste.
“Hell, that goes without sayin’. I work out. I like to show it off!” He laughs.
“Excellent,” I reply, tenting my fingers. “All my farm workers wear nothing but jockstraps and work boots. It’s just like a Zeus video,” I joke. “And there’s a houseboy position that might be opening up soon. Meanwhile, want some wine?”
I’d like to see him tipsy. We all know it’s only a matter of time before a well-built drunken gay boy starts to take his clothes off. And I like blood when it’s edged with alcohol, though it does make for a ragged flight pattern afterward. Imagine a bat with a three-foot wingspan weaving over the mountains as zigzag-erratic as birds grown drunk on poke berries.
“Nah, no wine. I want somethin’ harder. You got farm workers, eh? Where you live anyway?”
“A good bit from here. A ‘fur piece,’ as the phrase goes. Up near Spruce Knob.”
“Jeez, man, you drive all that way just to hear us play?” Matt exclaims, clearly flattered.
“It didn’t take me as long to get here as you might think.”
“I live up in Fort Hill. Nice neighborhood, sorta quiet, except for a goddamn poodle on Hayes. Great view over the river and the city. Five, ten minutes from here. Uh, wanna come up? I, uh, got some beer, some Bärenjäger, some Scotch, some Franklin County moonshine . . .”
“Single malt Scotch?” I quiz, creasing my brow with a connoisseur’s doubt.
“Yep.”
“If it’s single malt, you bet.” Having just fed, I can trust myself not to kill him.
“Where you parked?”
I was afraid he’d ask that. “Ummm, a goodly walk from here,” I lie. “Could you give me a lift?”
“If you don’t mind Tim McGraw CDs—now talk about woofy!—and a dirty pickup truck.”
He leads the way down Capitol Street, clears beer bottles and Krispy Kreme boxes off the passenger’s seat of his Chevy S-10, and we’re off.
It’s a split-level on Sheridan Circle, with a two-car garage and two shrieking cats that follow us up the stairs to the living room. “The big gray one’s Tubbus, ’cause he’s so big. He’s a terrible table-beggar. Th’other’s Snowball, who came with the name. I kinda wanted to call him Arcticus, or somethin’ high-falutin’ like his attitude,” Matt explains, pouring each of us Isle of Jura straight up, then taking a healthy swig. “How you like the view?”
I’m not in a position to tell him that I get an even higher perspective of this city’s lights with some leather-winged regularity. Below, Charleston’s buildings glint yellow and blue, and traffic streams over the I-64 bridge.
“The weeping mulberry in the front yard there I call ‘Cousin It.’ Y’know, from The Addams Family? Lemme show you the roses out back. And the new viburnum bushes I just planted. Oh, and the fuchsias.”
He’s chattering again, this time about vegetation—hot pokers and day lilies and Cleome and the Home and Garden channel—but by now his garrulity only charms me, gives me a sense of power. His desire for me makes him nervous, I sense, and while I myself always withdraw into aloof silence when I’m anxious, he tries to defuse the tension by expatiating about whatever’s at hand. How many Scotches before he makes a pass?
I get the landscaping tour, a discourse on the furniture, and now we’re listening to Joni Mitchell—the boy’s got taste—lounging on the couch and sipping a second Scotch in the dark, looking out over the distant city lights. Matt knocks back his drink, tugs off his Ariat boots and then goes on for a bit about the D.C. leather bars he gets to once in a rare while. Shirtless Night at the Green Lantern, Jockstrap Night at the Eagle, and so on.
On his fifth Scotch, he suddenly falls silent. I wait. Joni’s singing “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” All romantics meet the same fate someday. . . .
“Uh, Derek?” I can hear his heart beating. His terror is flattering.
“Yes, Matt?” I say evenly.
“Look, like I said the night we met, I’m still a little damaged, and I’m not ready for anything heavy, but, uh, I really want you, but, could we just cuddle for a while? Like I said . . .” He’s slurring his consonants a little.
“We should take it slow, I know. That’s fine,” I reply. I have my own reason for taking it slow. Someone needs to be alive to feed the cats tomorrow morning.
Matt gives a shaky sigh and scoots toward me on the couch. He leans his head against my shoulder. “It’s just that Thom really tore me up, and I’m scared.” . . . roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies.
“Sometimes men hurt men without meaning to, Matt.” I should know. I brush the dark hair off his forehead. Beneath my fingertips I can feel the solidity of his skull. How many years does he have left? I think of those damned dreams, his blood on the pavement.
“Man. You’re so gentle. It’s been a while since a man’s touched me.”
As hot as he is, I find that hard to believe. He’s shaking; this big guy is actually on the verge of tears. I turn his head to mine and kiss him. Briefly, softly, not the way I want to. Our mustaches brush. Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away.
“Take your T-shirt off, Matt. No sex. Let’s just lie here together.”
He obeys. In the darkness of this room high above the city, I can see the deeper dark of hair matting his chest and belly. His torso is beautiful, just the sort I savor most, the beefy curves of a weightlifter with a big
appetite. I brush my palm ever so lightly across the tuft curling in the pit of his neck. His warmth is intoxicating.
He looks down shyly, then up at me questioningly, yearningly, so I tug my shirt over my head too, then stand to pull off my own boots.
Now I’m sitting beside him. He reaches over to me with half-hesitant wonder and caresses my cold tattoos, first the black barbed wire around my upper right arm, then the dark face of the Horned God on my left shoulder. I kiss him again, as chastely as I can. My fangs are killing me.
“Derek, you feel real cold. You wanna blanket?”
“Sure.”
He tugs an afghan off the back of the couch.
“Derek? I’m real drunk.”
As am I, on the heat of him. “That’s fine, Matt. Sleep it off.” I stretch beside him on the couch, start stroking his head, and he drifts off almost instantly. With my right forefinger I smooth out his bushy werewolf eyebrows.
Five Scotches just to muster sufficient courage to touch another man. Next time I visit Zane in California, I reflect evilly, I’ll have to track down his ex-lover Thom in the Asshole of Encino. Feed him to Zane. Now there’s a vampiress who’ll tear up the little prick. She’d stretch out his dying for a couple of weeks.
I want to do to Matt what I did to Joe the Hot Cop earlier this evening, but I still don’t trust myself, and so, after listening to Matt snore awhile—it really does sound like a handsaw working over storm-fallen tree limbs—after playing with Matt’s nipples, after nuzzling the thick hair veiling the nape of his neck, after patting his hirsute belly—damnation, it’s hard to leave—I carefully rise so as not to wake him and tuck the edges of the afghan about his big frame. His cats, territorial, immediately leap up and position themselves about him as I shimmer/fade and mist under the door.
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