“Si..., he is a good man. He is a kind man. Si..., I like to be with him.”
“Good..., good. Yes, you like to be with him. Perhaps he will come back to see you, eh? We will be able to command a very good price from him. Our Mr. Bolen is quite captivated by you. Be sure you do what is necessary to keep him interested! Now..., I want you to be a good boy and get yourself washed. There is another gentleman who wishes time with you. You do not look too tired, and the gentleman who wants you is interested in what you can do to him with this...”
McIntyre grabbed Santiago’s penis, visible beneath the thin gauze trousers.
“This time, it is not your ass that you are to offer. Fuck him well. I know this man and he will demand to be treated harshly.”
Santiago looked worried. “But..., I am not sure I have much left in me.” He pointed to the bulging crotch. “It may not come up as easily this time because I came two times with Mr. Bolen.”
“You will do your best to ensure that it does, boy. Do whatever it takes, but get hard again long enough to make him feel it. Fake your orgasm if you must, but fuck him until he screams.”
Santiago serviced three more men before he was allowed to return to his room alone to sleep. The noises in the parlor and from the other rooms quieted as the night wore on. His senses were sufficiently dulled to allow a rest uninterrupted by the phantoms of his dreams.
A week passed. Santiago was asked to see two to three men each night. Some returned within the week because they were charmed by the boy’s aura of innocence and a lack of hard character, so predominant in child prostitutes. And in that week Santiago came to know the brothers more intimately as they began coming to his room to talk. McIntyre was aware of the boys’ interest and he made sure they were provided with enough opium to fill their needs and desires.
One morning Santiago was awakened by a persistent knocking at his door. When opened, he found a weakened Kim bracing himself against the wall, tears in his eyes, his face filled with fear and anguish.
“What is it? What’s wrong?
Santiago pulled the shaken boy into the room. The child could not stop trembling and his sobs were deep, making it difficult for him to speak. Kim collapsed at Santiago’s feet, his shoulders shaking with the crying of despair. Santiago knelt and took the boy by the shoulders and shook him.
“I can not help you if I do not know what is wrong. For God’s sake, get a hold of yourself and tell me what it is!”
Kim raised his head and looked at Santiago for a long while. The words could not come however he tried. Santiago stood and pulled the boy with him.
“Is it Michael?”
Kim nodded, his arm stretched with finger pointing to their room. Santiago ran to the neighboring room and found it in darkness. The light from the hallway was not enough for him to see in it clearly. He returned to his own room for a lamp. Kim was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, moaning to himself as he cried.
“Put those clothes on...,” Santiago ordered, only now realizing the boy’s nakedness, “...and stay here.”
With the lantern in hand he entered the boy’s room and found an empty bed and Michael laying on the floor beside it. Santiago ran to him but as soon as he touched the boy’s shoulder he knew he was dead. The flesh was cold and the body lay in a pool of excrement. He brought the lantern closer. Michael’s face was twisted to the side, his mouth crusted with vomit and saliva, his eyes open. Santiago was suddenly repulsed by the sight of the twisted face, Michael’s eyes staring. He pulled sheets from the bed and covered the body, so small and frail, and returned to his room.
“You know..., your brother is dead.”
“I know.”
The answer was an acknowledgment of the horrible truth.
“What happened?”
Kim tried to collect himself to speak. It was difficult to stop the tears. Santiago refrained from further questions and sat on the bed beside the boy and held him tightly, feeling the heavy sobs racking the young child with overwhelming grief. The crying continued for some time and Santiago stayed with the boy, rocking him gently until the sobs subsided to deep sighs of exhaustion.
“Now tell me,” Santiago urged. “Do you know what happened?”
“No,” The boy answered through sniffles of a running nose and swollen eyes. Santiago took the edged of the sheet and ordered him to blow his nose into it.
“I came back to the room only a few minutes ago. I found him on the floor. He would not talk to me..., he will never talk to me!”
“You were not with him?”
“No. The man who bought me wanted me all night. We used one of the other rooms.”
“Then you were not with the same man?”
“Yes earlier, we were with the same man together. Then McIntyre said another man wanted me so I went with him.”
“No one knows about this yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We need to tell someone. Stay here. I’ll get McIntyre.”
Kim began to cry again. “I want my brother...!”
“Stay here until I return, I’ll be right back.”
Santiago left Kim still rocking and sobbing. He ran down the hallway at to the parlor below. Chairs and tables had been piled and the old Chinaman was cleaning.
“Whuang..., where is McIntyre? I must find him.., anyone..., quickly!”
The Chinese man seemed unnerved, recognizing an emergency.
“No McIntyre here..., boss gone.”
“Who is here then? One of the twins is dead. Get someone!”
The man raised his hands to his head and wailed as he ran from the room. Santiago paced back and forth until Whuang returned with one of McIntyre’s men.
“This crazy old coot says somebody’s dead? Do you know what he’s talking about?’
“Yes. Come. One of the twins, Michael..., he is dead in his room.”
Santiago followed behind the two men as they ran up the stairs and stopped at the twin’s door. Santiago looked beyond the men into the dimly lit interior. Kim was sitting on the floor with his brother in his arms, rocking him. His tears fell on his dead brother’s face so that both boys wept. Kim clung to the body and it took all the strength of the two men to pull them apart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
on a Sunday in June, Michael Simmon’s body was sewn into a cloth sack and taken out to sea. Kim and Santiago had been isolated from the others and told of the consequences of a loose tongue. McIntyre spoke threateningly to each of the danger of the news leaking out about the death. If exposed, all of them would be jailed or sent away to terrible places and none would ever be free again.
When Kin gained courage to ask about the cause of his brother’s death, McIntyre attributed it to a drug overdose. He blamed it fully on Michael’s greed, suggesting that the boy had either obtained extra drugs from another boy or more likely had stolen some. McIntyre asked Santiago how much of what he had been given, remained. He looked beneath a pile of clothing where he hid his supply and found all of what he had left, missing. Also hidden with the stash of opium had been a sum of money he had been saving; little extra gifts left by customers like Bolen. All of it was missing. Santiago reasoned that if Michael had come into his room to steal, something of what had been stolen would still be in the twin’s room. After McIntyre left them alone, Kim helped in the search but they found nothing. In fact Kim told Santiago that a small cameo that had belonged to their mother was not where it had been hidden. This raised the suspicion that the boys’ room had been searched along with Santiago’s and put into question the veracity of McIntyre’s story and of his being behind the entire affair?
McIntyre told Kim his brother had been buried in a cemetery some miles from the city. Perhaps soon, if he was not troublesome, he would be taken to the grave and their room was rid of everything that could point to the boy’s existence. In truth the death had been directly due to the excessive sexual practices by the man who had last been with the boy, combined with the indiscriminate in
gestion of opium. The Doctor asked to look at Michael and found the major cause of death to have been from internal bleeding of a ruptured intestine as a result of the insertion of a large object..., perhaps a fist.
The elimination of the second brother had been suggested by several of McIntyre’s men. They argued that his dependency on the dead boy would likely lead to additional trouble. But the Doctor who had examined Michael refused to be a party to any further intrigue and threatened to disclose the entire affair if Kim was harmed. McIntyre found the Doctor’s sense of propriety and outrage misbegotten, considering his own duplicity in being the examiner of all the boys to keep them disease-free and of his own use of them at will. He decided to abide by the Doctor’s wishes for the time being and began to think of how the man might himself be eliminated and be replaced with someone more cooperative.
Santiago Cali was deeply touched by Kim’s sadness. From the moment his brother had been torn from his arms, Kim had stopped speaking. His heart went out to him and he understood the loneliness and desperation of losing a friend and brother. He visited the boy in his room or invited him to come to his own. He urged the boy to come with him for meals when Kim stopped eating. The boy spoke to no one. He stared through vacant eyes and seemed to move through the house without purpose or intent. He continued to function in this capacity and serviced every man McIntyre sent to him, but he did not speak. Yet he continued to go to Santiago or McIntyre for his daily dose of opium. He lost weight. McIntyre decided to withhold the substance until he began to eat again because the customers started to complain that having sex with the boy was like fucking a corps.
It was Santiago who finally broke through to Kim one morning as he took him by the hand and dragged him into his room and closed the door.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Kim sat silent, his eyes darkened and sunken, his face having lost its childish look It was more like that of an old man’s, long in suffering. Santiago saw the prominence of the ribs and the thinness of the arms and legs. What blush the boy had once possessed, was lost. The once-lustrous hair was now dry and matted.
“If that is what you are trying to do, then you are playing right into McIntyre’s hand. He wants you out of the way! That way there will be no one to report your brother’s death.”
The boy looked up with interest.
“I have been listening to what the others have been saying. Everyone knows that Michael did not die by something he did to himself. Why do you think all his things have been taken? The only thing of Michael’s that has not been removed is you! Some of the others are surprised that you are still here. Everyone expected you to suddenly disappear. But here you are! Wouldn’t it be convenient for McIntyre if you got ill and died? He would be rid of both of you and have nothing to answer to. But they say that the Doctor has warned him against hurting you. What kind of way is this for you to behave? Wouldn’t you want to help find out what happened to Michael?”
Kim had sat upright and his eyes had never left Santiago’s face as he pressed on.
“I’m going to tell you something. It is to be a secret between us. I tell it to you to show that these things do not need to go un-avenged. I came to this country with my father. We came to find gold. We joined a group that traveled to the mountains. We came close to finding a treasure but three men killed my father. They shot him. For three days they used me like a woman. I waited until the time was right and cut the throat of the one who was fucking me. He bled all over me as he was lying over me and I enjoyed the feeling of having the blood run over my face, knowing he was dying as it spilled out of him. I finally shoved him off when there was nothing left. I shot off the heads of the other two men. Then I made my way back to a town where there was a man who had been responsible for setting the three on us. I killed him also.”
Kim had listened. He had observed Santiago’s eyes turning from the warm and soft ones with which he had become familiar and had come to trust, to those of someone filled with vengeance. He had seen Santiago transformed from gentleness to hatred and the passion that filled him was like new life for the boy. It was promise of power.
“You want to sit there and feel sorry for yourself? Remember how Michael always stood up to anybody who threatened either of you? Remember how he confronted the other boys when you first arrived? Remember how he stood up to McIntyre? What do you think he would have done if it had been you that died instead of him? Do you think he would have stopped talking and would have refused to eat? Or would he have fought and kicked and tried to avenge you?”
Kim’s hands clenched. His head thrust forward. The blank stare and lack of expression, the slumped shoulder and depression were replaced by something that spoke of determination and resolve.
“Well...?” Santiago hoped the boy would respond.
“I hate them..., I hate all of them! I hate McIntyre for doing this to me. I hate my father for leaving us when my mother died. I hate those men who put their hands all over me. I hate it here. And I hate you because you like it here!”
“Do you think I like this?” Santiago was satisfied that he had finally elicited a reaction.
“You do..., don’t you? I’ve seen you. I’ve seen the way you look when we’re called to the parlor to sit on those fucking stools. You like it! You like having those men look at you. You can’t tell me your not excited by it because I have seen you get hard right away. Michael used to talk about it. He said you were born to do this.”
The words were like a slap to his face and Santiago sat silent. Was this what the boys had thought? It had not occurred to him that they would have had that opinion of him. Was it true? He could not deny the fact that he had had an immediate attraction to the streets from the first time he had seen the boys there and had known deep within his mind what they were doing. Then there had been the statement made by the Captain about Santiago having a gold mine between his legs. He could not remember a time when he had not had the thoughts of a maricon. And there were his fantasies of being sought, pursued, and abducted. He had seen the looks from other men and boys that had ignited interest.
“What of it? What has that got to do with you? Yes, I can not deny that although I dislike this place, I do like what I do. I will do whatever necessary to live. I have no one! And I will do whatever I need to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. You would do better to look at yourself and do something to better your own situation than to criticize what other do!”
Kim’ anger brought a new life to his expression and some of his color had returned.
“Are you saying I should enjoy doing this and say nothing about my brother? How can I agree to do something I hate so much? In spite of all the yelling and complaining and all the trouble Michael caused about being sold and being here, he was more like you than I. He did enjoy what he did in bed. When we shared the same man I would see him become so involved and excited that it was almost as though he became someone else..., someone I did not know. I hated doing what I was doing, and he loved it! I don’t think he ever knew that.”
“Why did you not say this to him?”
“I don’t know. I knew he expected me to do what he did. I knew he would be disappointed with me if I told him how I felt.”
‘What will you do now?”
“What should I do?”
Santiago understood finally that Michael’s function with Kim had been to tell the boy what to do. Kim seemed lost without his brother. He truly did not know what to do.
‘You were starving yourself and making yourself ill. Is that what you want?”
“No!”
“What do you want?”
“To get away from here. I want to go home and find my father.”
“Did he not abandon you?”
“He had no choice. When mother died he had to return to work in the mines and it was not a place to bring children. He found a woman in Sydney who was willing to take us. When the money stopped coming from my father, she sold us to a man who offered to
take us off her hands. That’s when all this began. The man kept us for a few months and started playing with Michael first. Then he turned to me and I saw that Michael was not objecting. I said nothing. When he tired of us he sold us to a ship captain who traded in boys. Mrs. Belle bought us because she felt sorry for us when she heard we were being sold to a woman in New Orleans who had a place like this, only much worse.”
“See...,” Santiago took the boy’s hand and led him back to the bed and had him sit down. “Maybe you are better off than you thought you might be if she had not kept you in San Francisco.”
“And my brother might be alive!”
Kim’s words were bitter, but as softened by Santiago’s touch.
“Would you accept a poor substitute?”
“What?”
“Would you be willing to accept me as a substitute for a brother?”
“Why are you asking that?”
“Because I lost my brother too. Because I have no one left. Because we are each in the same predicament and it sounds like a good idea.”
“What will we do..., I mean what if I say yes? What will we do differently?”
“If I had a little brother here with me I would be sure that he was eating properly and taking a bath every day. I would be there to help him when he had problems, and I would go to him when I had a problem. I would try to help him find a way to get back to his father, if that was what he wanted.”
Santiago saw the boy’s interest as amazement came into his eyes, touched with skepticism.
“Kim, I need you as much s you need me. We can be of help to each other. But you can not be of any help to me if you starve yourself or continue smoking so much opium. I wonder if you feel the same way?”
A long pause was followed by a wave of emotion that swept over the young boy’s face. He saw internal conflict, sadness memories, pain of previous disappointment, all of which were being considered in attempt at resolution. Santiago took Kim in his arms and held him.
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