So, were there onlookers—and there are not—they might see, striding into tonight’s dark DC alley, a tall man dressed in a long black Western duster, sporting unruly, gray-streaked hair and a silver beard. They might see, flying out of the alley, an unnaturally large, hoary-backed, black-winged bat, a bat that methodically hovers by window after window of the Tabard Inn, front and back, looking for ingress, some escape from the cold. To those hypothetical witnesses, the size of the bat would be odd enough; odder still, its presence in midwinter, when it should be hibernating.
Here is Tobias, in a top-floor room in the back of the inn. He’s chosen it for its spacious privacy, its relative isolation, desires that conveniently dovetail with my intentions tonight. I perch on the sill, swaying in the cold wind, hungry darkness on the edge of the light, savoring the warmth so soon to come. He’s pulled off his blazer and tie, unbuttoned his dress shirt a few notches and rolled up his sleeves. The light of a single lamp glints along his forearm fur. He sits at the desk, big fingers working over his laptop. He uncaps a bottle of scotch, fills a water glass with its amber, slugs it down and sets out his clothes for tomorrow’s meetings.
And then Tobias strips for me. Not that he knows he has an audience. He stands, tugs his shirt over his head and tosses it on the couch. He pulls off one cowboy boot, then, hopping around, pulls off the other. He unzips his charcoal-gray slacks, shucks them and his boxers down his thick, hairy thighs. For a few seconds, as if aware he has an admirer, he stands naked in front of an ornately framed antique mirror. His back to the window in which I peer, he grins at himself, knowing his power. He grins and lifts his glass to his own reflection. The world is his. His charm knows no limits. Tonight, he sleeps only five blocks from the White House, but in the future, perhaps…
Tobias is built just as my careful study of him in the parlor led me to believe. In the mirror’s depths loom his huge football player’s shoulders, his chunky pecs, his solid, muscled arms. Only a little blond hair around his nipples and over his sternum, to my disappointment, though there’s a decent thatch across his tastily broad, gone-to-seed beer belly, honey-blond fur the color of broom sedge that whispers over abandoned pastures back in Appalachia. His back, turned to me, is wide and muscled; his ass is beefy, smooth, curvaceous and very pale. It will feel like volcanic velvet beneath my cheek. He’s the perfect combination of occasional weight lifting—my guess is his ego demands that he stay in some kind of shape—and regular gastronomic indulgence; a poor boy who grows up to live high on the hog just can’t forego good food and drink.
Ripe, ripe, mature, ripe. Other than the sad sparseness of his chest hair, he’s exactly my type.
The proud gentleman from Virginia gulps the last of the glass and steps into the bathroom, beyond the line of my sight. There’s the rush and splash of the shower; wafts of steam curl around the frame of the bathroom door.
Time to focus. My membranous darkness and silvery fur dissolve. As glowing chartreuse mist, I hover about the window, find a slight opening between brick and frame—these old buildings are always blessed with expedient little gaps—and enter. Time for Tobias’s surprise.
By the time tonight’s lover has finished his shower, I’m naked too, cozy coverlet pulled up to my belly, propped up on thick pillows, hands behind my head. If he were gay, he might perhaps—if he were into leatherbears instead of twinks—enjoy the sight of me, my thick beard, my hairy chest and armpits, my tattoos. But he’s straight—a nasty homophobe, in fact—and besides, it takes him a few seconds to notice, in the low light, the silent stranger awaiting him. Oblivious, he fumbles about for his robe in a closet at the other end of the large room, pulls it on, belts it, pours himself another shot of scotch and then turns toward the bed.
If I were in his shoes—well, his situation, I should say, since he’s barefoot—I might drop the glass in shock. He doesn’t. He simply gasps. He tightens his grip on his drink and, born fighter, starts assessing. You can tell from his song lyrics that he was quite the redneck bar-brawler in his day. He’s bigger than I am, he figures out fast. I’m naked, I have no weapons in sight. His initial second of fear metamorphoses almost instantly into anger.
Tobias backs up a step and says, low, intense, “Who the fuck are you?”
I smile. I stare into his wide blue eyes and start feeling for a purchase in his thoughts. He shakes his head and takes another step back.
“Bad manners, Senator Crockett. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” I arch luxuriously against the flannel sheet, run my fingers through my silver chest hair, and keep smiling. “I prefer single malt, but I’ll settle for that blended you have there.”
Two more steps back, then three to the left, and he’s put the scotch on a dresser and pulled a gun out of his suitcase. That does it, he thinks. Checkmate. I was born to take control.
“I asked you a question. Who the hell are you? And why the fuck are you here?” Tobias levels the gun at me. I level my glance at him. I take in that heaving chest, the heartbeat speeding up with adrenaline, the soap-scent of his crotch. I would have preferred him unwashed when I took him. I like to carry a man’s dense musk in my beard after we part.
Our eyes lock. I continue to dig. Sensing an intrusion he’s never encountered before, he shakes his head again and again, trying to dislodge me. Big man, big will. It’s like arm-wrestling. But he’s only had forty-some years to gather his strength. I’ve had centuries.
“Put down the gun, Tobias,” I say quietly. “I know you’re an avid gun-toter, but those days are over. Put down the gun.”
He shakes his head. His big hand begins a fine trembling.
It’s intoxicating when they fight me. It makes overpowering them all the more thrilling. Forcing strength and beauty to submit: that’s a quest worth the dedication of many lifetimes.
I rummage through his brain, trying to find it, the place from which to rule. Rare is the human whose will I can’t subdue. Like wrapping my hand around an uncut diamond, like holding a man’s heart-lump in my grasp and squeezing ever so tenderly. The fulcrum with which Archimedes suggested we might move the world.
Here. Here, I think. I press down. Tobias blinks, staggers back, lowering the gun.
“Why don’t you put down that gun and fetch me a scotch?” I’m stroking my beard, smiling at this latest in several centuries of triumphs. And, just when I think my fingers have sunk deep enough to encircle, enslave, his will flexes—an abrupt expansion, a hardening, like the sudden strain of an athlete’s biceps. His eyes grow wide, and to my amazement, he shakes me off. He raises the gun, pointing it at my face.
“You tell me who the hell you are, you bastard, and what you want, or I’ll blow your head off.”
“So you’re one of those,” I say, sitting up. “You really are remarkable. In all these years, I’ve met only a handful of men who could do what you just did. Warriors and heroes, every one of them. A magnificent will to match a magnificent body.”
“Get the fuck out of my bed, asshole.” Tobias waves the gun. “And do it slow, or I’ll shoot.”
“Yes,” I say. “Gladly.” I obey. I stand in front of him naked, a mere yard’s distance between us.
“What the hell?” Tobias stares down at my erection.
“This is what beauty inspires,” I say. “Your fault entirely.”
“What are you? Some kind of fucking—?”
That’s all he gets out before I leap. I’m on him before he can lift his eyes or draw another breath. In a split second, his grip’s broken, his gun’s on the carpet at his feet and my hands are wrapped around the pulsing trunk of his neck.
“How—?” he gasps, before I dig my thumbs into the flesh over his windpipe and cut off his breath. His big hands claw at mine. His robe falls open as we sway and circle. “Jesus,” he croaks. His eyes bulge and water. His face reddens. He’s very, very strong; even robbed of air, he weakens very slowly. It takes more time and effort than I ever would have expected to force him backward, step by straining
step, to the bed’s edge, to force him down and then back onto the sheets.
“And I was trying to make this meeting as cordial as possible,” I say, lying on top of him, his nakedness so warm beneath mine, so moist with terror’s sweat. “But of course you’re a fighter. I should have known you’d opt for troublesome.”
All that blood, pounding in his neck as he bucks beneath me. “You’re only making me harder,” I say, wrapping my legs around his to subdue his panicked kicks. He’s been too proud to try to summon aid, but finally now his fear overcomes that pride. Too late, too little breath left. His cries for help are no more than frantic wheezes. I gaze into his eyes, studying the rapid flickering of his long lashes as he pries futilely at my fingers.
“Please,” he says, such a small whisper from such a large man.
“We’re not done yet,” I say. I kiss his full lips, lightly, then strike his temple with my right knuckles—one sharp rap to the skull, as if his head were a door. He grunts. His blue eyes close. Beneath me, he goes limp.
I leave him there, slumped across the bed. For a few minutes I stand by the door, listening. Silence in the hall, no one roused by the brief struggle. Fetching his abandoned scotch, I stand by the window, watching the snow sifting down outside. When I’m certain there will be no interruptions, I light a candle, place it on a side table, and search among his belongings for what’s needed next.
Tobias is ready now. Many hours yet till dawn, so I can take my time, I can savor the scotch, stretch out in this big bed beside him, relish the sight of him sprawled unconscious on his back—hairy, handsome and entirely helpless. He’s naked now in the candlelight, sleeping his next-to-last sleep. I tousle his blond curls, rub his bearded chin, run a hand over his broad breast. Such a splendor; such an evil. Such a pity that I must erase one in order to erase the other.
With the terry-cloth belt of his robe, I’ve tied his big wrists together in the small of his back. Not snug-tight, the way I like to rope up my sweet lover Matt, but hurtful-tight. Tobias’s politics require it. With a leather belt found in his suitcase, I’ve bound his arms behind him so tightly his elbows almost touch; I want his big muscles contorted, his joints racked. With another leather belt I’ve cinched his ankles together. To stop his speech, I’ve tied two dirty white gym socks together at the toes, stuffed his mouth with the fat, foot-sour knot and secured the ends behind his head. He’s exceptionally beautiful this way. The world will be less one loveliness tomorrow.
Tobias shifts beside me, coming awake. Bending over him, I lap his chin. His eyes flicker open, blurry blue. He groans, rolling onto his side. His eyes wander, fall on me, focus. He grits his teeth around the gag, growls deep in his throat and tries to rise. He fails. His muscles strain. Awareness of his thoroughly powerless position fills his eyes. Truly delicious, such frantic surprise. The trammeled thrashing and stifled shouting begin.
“Keep still, Tobias. You’ll hurt yourself,” I say, but it’s too late. Wide as the bed is, his struggles are so violent that he rolls off the edge, landing on the floor with a thump and a grunt.
I slip off the bed to fetch him. He lies stunned, on his side, knees drawn up in a fetal curl, fists clenched against the small of his back. When his struggles recommence, as do his muffled shouts, I stand astride him, then lift a foot and press it hard against the side of his face.
“Be quiet and keep still, or I’ll crush your skull.”
He obeys immediately.
“You’re going to do what you’re told?”
Tobias hesitates a second, then nods. How it must pain him, that reluctant recognition of superior strength.
“Good boy.” I bend, heaving him upright. He sways on bound feet, glaring at me, panting into the cloth stuffing his mouth, then loses his balance and topples into my arms. I catch him, lifting him beneath shoulders and knees. He stiffens with shock as I carry him to the window.
“Look. It’s still snowing,” I say, gazing out into the restless sheets of white, then down at him, folded up in my arms as if he were my son. I smile. “You’re wondering how a man so much smaller can pick you up?”
He sucks in air through his nose and nods. Shudders course through him.
“I have a secret,” I say, “and some stories to tell.”
I carry my captive to the bed, gently lower him onto it, and slip onto the sheets beside him. I gaze down at him, at that well-muscled bulk trussed up tight and panting in candlelight. He stares up at me, eyes moist with terror. I love it when they want to sob but their masculine sense of shame won’t allow them. Their eyes grow wet at the edges like a farm pond’s ice giving way with spring thaw.
“Take a look at you now,” I say, dragging a finger over the delicate pink flesh of his gagged lips. “The Virginia senator has nothing to say?”
Tobias shakes his head slowly. How badly he wants to look away or close his eyes, but he can’t. Never in all his most agonizing nightmares could he have imagined himself so powerless.
His shuddering is even more violent now that we’re in bed together. Plus the building’s old, the room’s drafty, snow’s swarming the windowpanes.
“Are you cold?”
Tobias nods. “Poor boy,” I sigh. Stretching out on my back beside him, I pull the covers over us, lean back on the pillows heaped against the headboard and say, “Put your head on my chest.” Bound as tightly as he is, it takes a little squirming on his part, a little nudging on mine, till the weight of his big head rests over my heart.
“Isn’t this sweet?” I sigh, wrapping an arm around him. “You feel so good against me. Comfortable?”
Tobias shakes his head emphatically. Behind the sock-knot a grunted “Huh-uh.”
Chuckling, I play with the hair fringing his nipples. He stiffens against me; jagged trembling runs through him.
“You hate this, don’t you? My touching you?”
A slow nod. More trembling.
“Good. Would you like to know why I’m here? Other than to do this?” I tug at his belly-hair now, squeeze the thick muscles of his shoulders and arms, the thick meat of his chest. “Other than to pay homage to your considerable might?”
“Ummm mmm,” he mumbles into the socks, breathing heavily through his nose. I pull him closer, sip my scotch and stroke his head of golden curls.
“Let me begin with this,” I say. Even after these several centuries, I can’t keep the sorrow from my voice, stern as I might want to sound tonight. “In 1730, my lover Angus and I were caught making love, attacked by a gang of men like you. Men who thought their God hated us. Angus died. He was stabbed to death. I was saved for another life.”
Tobias emits a low, long groan. His shaking grows more violent.
“Do you understand? This is why I am stronger and faster than you could ever be, why my skin is so chilly against you.”
Tobias shakes his head. He gives a small sob.
“You’re still shivering. Are you still cold? I am as well. Here, let me hold you closer.” Rolling him onto his side, I curl up against him, his broad back to my chest. My left arm pillows his head, my right arm I wrap around him.
“Better. Ah, you’re so, so warm,” I say, caressing his beefy chest beneath the blanket. “Tobias, do you remember that hateful amendment you helped pass? The one outlawing same-sex marriages in Virginia? The one insuring that ‘any contracts between same-sex couples that might approximate marriage would be illegal’? I think that was the wording. Tonight really began there. And with three people with whose fates I’m familiar. I wish you could have known them. Perhaps then you and I would never have met.”
I rest my palm against his breastbone. His heart drums madly beneath my hand. I nuzzle his nape, smell the blood coursing beneath his thin, fragile skin and lick my lips.
“There was Charlotte, a bar-buddy of my lover Matt’s. She was driving home one night when a drunk driver hit her head-on. Her lover Grace was barred from her hospital room. Thanks to your amendment, Grace was not considered family. So Charlotte die
d alone. Can you imagine that?”
Another choked sob. A gag-muffled, “No,” a shaking of the head.
“Then there was Karen, Matt’s friend from college years ago. Her ex-husband swore to identify her as a lesbian in court if she fought him for custody of their two sons. She hanged herself in her barn. That’s the kind of world your laws help create, Tobias. Can you see that?”
“No, no.” Muffled, but louder.
“And sweet little Chet, Matt’s cousin. Just sixteen years old. Thanks to your adept political maneuvering and all your fundamentalist friends, his high school wouldn’t allow a gay-straight alliance. No sympathy from his parents, who told him he was a damned-to-hell monster. The boy drowned himself in Peak Creek last week. My lover’s been weeping on and off ever since.”
As I whisper in Tobias’s ear, I press my hand over his brow, and inside his skull I cause them to appear, the consequences of his demagogic bluster: the bloated body hung off creaking rafters, the pale limbs splayed in gray water, the woman sobbing in a hospital waiting room. Beneath my palm, the images cascade through his brain, on and on, on and on, the pain, the deaths, the fear he’s helped create.
Enough. I lift my hand from his forehead, and the stream of stories stops. “They were my kin. Now do you see why I’m here?”
This time a nod. This time a sock-muted “Yes.” This time an unchecked stream of silent tears I wipe from his cheeks with my thumb.
“Good.” For a full minute I stroke his streaming cheeks, tasting the salt, the remorse, the appetizer of brine. Suddenly, roughly, I roll him onto his belly, climb on top of him and clamp one hand over his gagged mouth.
“What a Christian,” I say, stroking the fuzzy crevice between his buttocks. Tobias gasps beneath my grip; his broad shoulders heave.
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