The Shaman of Kupa Piti

by A. Nybo

  Sergei shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Leon threw his wrap onto the plate. “Fuck it, Sergei. You are seriously starting to piss me off.”

  Sergei sat back in his chair, an arm extended to the table. He openly studied Leon for some time before he spoke. “I’d like to have you with me both personally and as Doris, but if I can’t have that, then there is nothing I can do about it.”

  Leon’s head began to hurt. “That is what I’m saying.” He tried hard to contain his frustration. “If you agree to stay elsewhere, then it’s a possibility. If you don’t, then there is next to no chance I can wrangle it.”

  The indecision of the past few days was weighing heavily on him, and Sergei’s mere presence worked as a constant reminder of what he couldn’t have, despite Sergei remaining silent on the matter. Since he wasn’t being pressured, it should make the whole thing easier, but somehow it seemed to make it more difficult.

  “All right, but it needs to be somewhere I can make noise.”

  “I know. Your drum.” Leon appreciated the drum was important to Sergei, but at this point he was sick of hearing about the bloody thing.

  “Are you always so cranky when your instincts and conscience do battle?”

  Leon pinched the bridge of his nose. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been irritable since our conversation the other day, and your mood is growing worse.” Sergei leaned forwards and lowered his voice. “This would be far easier if you would accept the decision you’ve made. There is little point in fighting it.”

  “What decision? I haven’t made one yet. That’s the fucking problem!” he snarled and then looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Several people had turned to watch him. Luckily he was in plain clothes, so no one knew he was an AFP agent—wouldn’t his behaviour be a fantastic image raiser for the agency? What was it about Sergei that seemed to entice him to breach every professional protocol?

  Sergei raised a knowing eyebrow. “You’ve already made it twice, but still you resist.”

  Getting stuck on a roundabout would be less irritating than Sergei’s cryptic response. “What do you mean I’ve already made it twice? I think I’d know if I’d made a decision.”

  Sergei sat back and rubbed his stomach as if the single sandwich he’d had for lunch had filled him to capacity. “Stop running in circles and listen to yourself, Leon. If I tell you, you will dismiss it as too simple. You need to arrive at it yourself.”

  Was Sergei toying with him? He tried unsuccessfully to control his acerbic response. “Is this the shaman talking?”

  Sergei leaned in to speak quietly, emphasising Leon’s failure to aggravate him, taunting him with his control. “It is me speaking—person, shaman, Russian, man, miner. Take your pick or don’t. Entirely up to you.”

  Sergei stood and, picking up his bag, left the table and walked to one of the airport bookshops across from the café.

  The powerful, almost overwhelming, desire to physically attack Sergei shocked Leon. Was Sergei purposely aggravating him, or was he really that calm a person? Thinking about it, the only time Leon had seen him riled was when he’d probed Sergei about his father.

  It had been so long since he’d experienced irrational anger that he couldn’t remember the last time. Sergei was driving him crazy; he ran from excessively intense to seemingly apathetic. But was it really Sergei that was making him angry, or was it his own inability to reconcile his competing desires for Sergei and his profession?

  A call for their flight came over the passenger announcement system. Leon eyed his partially eaten wrap with disdain as he pushed his chair back and rose. His appetite had dissipated as his anger had grown.

  He picked up his bag and headed over to the bookshop. “That was our call.” He read aloud the cover of the book Sergei was holding open. “The Life of the Australian Fur Seal?” He injected as much sarcasm as possible to reflect his thoughts on the dream in which Sergei had him starring as a seal. “Does one of them have a grey patch above its ear?”

  Sergei snapped the book shut and set it back on the shelf. “I don’t know,” he said with calm grace. “I never had the chance to look at all the pictures. I was seeing if it could give me any insight into your behaviour.”

  The devilish twinkle in his eyes shattered Leon’s temper, and the deflation was immediate. With a shake of his head, Leon gave a weak smile. “Arsehole,” he muttered as he started towards the departure gate.

  Sergei took several quick steps to catch up. “What was that? You’d like to kiss my arsehole?”

  Drawing his head back in mock disbelief, Leon gave him a sidelong glance, his mouth twisted in a suppressed grin. “Maybe.”

  The groan Sergei emitted was entirely too intimate for an airport, and it caused a flutter low in Leon’s stomach.

  “Stop it,” Leon warned.

  “You started it.”

  “Shh!” Leon took his boarding pass from his pocket to present when they reached the attendant at the gate. “No, I didn’t,” he muttered under his breath.

  MUCH OF the flight was spent in amicable silence. With his temper stilled, Leon’s thoughts kept returning to Sergei’s claim that he’d already made his decision twice. Since every road kept leading back to that claim, Leon decided that, despite how much he didn’t want to think it, he instinctually knew Sergei was onto something. But what? How could he make a decision and not be aware of it? Or was it not that he wasn’t aware of it but didn’t want to accept it?

  By the time the plane touched down, Leon had turned the problem inside out and examined it from every direction but was still none the wiser. He was tired of thinking about it.

  The heat hit him the moment he stepped from the plane. He wasn’t sure whether it was that the afternoon had grown warmer while they had been in the air-conditioned aircraft, or it was the temperature difference between Adelaide and Coober Pedy, or a combination, but he felt it was about to knock him on his backside. Or maybe that was the weight of the flies.

  Exiting the airport, Leon was surprised to see the big burly sergeant had personally come to pick them up. Talking to one of the airport workers, Charlie stood with his back to them.

  “Charlie!”

  The sergeant turned, and with a final word and a departing wave to the worker, he approached Leon and Sergei. They made small talk about the flight, but the moment they were safely ensconced in the vehicle out of earshot of possible eavesdroppers, Charlie changed topics.

  “We’ve got a place that can be used if you’re interested in protection, Sergei,” said Charlie.

  “I am, but as I said to national Doris, I need a place that is amenable to my drum use.”

  Looking out the passenger window, Leon hid his smile at the way Sergei said Doris as though he really believed that’s what the police were called.

  Ignoring Sergei’s taunt, Charlie didn’t miss a beat. “There shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a dugout down one of the back streets.” Charlie glanced at Leon. “There’s internet access, and I figured it would be cheaper for you to stay there too, rather than at the hotel.”

  Leon’s head snapped around. “What? I….” He could have sworn he heard a snort from the back seat. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea.”

  “It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me,” said Charlie. “You may as well save some money on the hotel bill. Not only that, but it’ll make it easier to give Sergei around-the-clock protection with our limited resources. Besides, we can get the house on the cheap.”

  What was he going to say? That it was inappropriate for him to stay in the same house as the person he was protecting—because protecting him while in another building was so much more effective. Leon closed his eyes and wished for strength.

  “If we go straight to the house, Sergei can give us a list of things he needs from home,” Charlie said.

  “There are a couple of gym bags in my closet that have enough clothes and things. Of course I’ll need my drum.”
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  “Not a problem,” said Charlie. He continued to offer a way to go about getting them set up in the house with as few people as possible knowing they were back in town.

  Too busy wallowing in his anxiety over sleeping in the same house as Sergei again, Leon barely paid attention to Charlie’s plan. He soon found himself in an unfamiliar house with Sergei as they waited for Charlie to return with Sergei’s things.

  Sitting on a stool at the breakfast counter, his computer open before him, Leon rested with his head in his hand. It seemed even Charlie was working against him now—hell, the entire universe was conspiring against him. Leon tried to think what he’d said or done that made Sergei believe he’d made a decision. Twice.

  He’d not long managed to drag his mind back to the emails he was supposed to be answering when Charlie returned with Sergei’s things and bags of shopping containing the staples and the makings for sausages and salad. The first thing in the door was Sergei’s drum, still wrapped in the plastic bag.

  Insisting Sergei stay inside, Leon helped courier the bags, and as they brought the last of them in, he could hear Sergei in the bathroom, presumably cleaning his drum.

  “Have you got anything left at the hotel?” Charlie asked.

  “They have some clothes in storage, a few uniforms and stuff. Nothing immediate.”

  “I’ll have someone pick it up for you tomorrow. I don’t know yet whether we can spare someone for a day shift, but bringing some more food and things around isn’t a problem. If there’s anything you need, text me.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. Who all knows we are here?”

  “At this point, me. But I’ll need to let the others know so they can patrol around here and keep a general eye out.”

  Charlie left, and after answering a few more emails, Leon was thinking about getting dinner started when he heard the steady beating of the drum coming from Sergei’s room. It wasn’t loud, but it was constant.

  Not wanting to interrupt, Leon left him to it, cooked dinner, cleaned up, put Sergei’s dinner in the fridge, and watched TV to the soft beat that was beginning to drive him to distraction.

  Sergei was still banging on the damn thing when Leon went to bed, his earbuds piping Hozier to his own set of drums. Almost asleep, he turned the music off and set his phone on the bedside table. Sergei’s drumming was still audible, but it was so gentle it had a relaxing quality to it, and Leon’s heart seemed to synchronise to the beat. He drifted off to sleep with the image of Sergei tapping against his heart.

  “You’ve already made the decision,” said the little girl. Her huge dark brown eyes shone with joy.

  “And what decision is that?” asked Leon.

  They were sitting on a park bench in the middle of an opal field, but it didn’t seem odd that there was a bench surrounded by nothing but mineshafts.

  “To eat the ice cream.” Her tiny voice was befitting of a five-year-old.

  Leon looked at the ice cream cone in his hand. He licked it again. Strawberry.

  “That’s twice you’ve made it,” she said, and licked her own ice cream.

  “I wasn’t making a decision so much as stopping it from dripping on my hand,” argued Leon.

  She giggled with innocent abandon. “It doesn’t matter how or why, silly, just that you have.”

  Leon laughed too. He guessed it didn’t much matter. If he hadn’t wanted the ice cream, he wouldn’t have got it in the first place, or he would have just thrown it away.

  “Do you want some of mine?” She held out her predominantly blue ice cream.

  He shook his head. “No thanks. I don’t really like bubblegum.”

  “Bubblegum? What’s that?”

  “That’s the flavour of your ice cream.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Then what flavour is it?” asked Leon.

  “Life,” she said and took another big lick.

  Leon chuckled. “There is no such flavour of ice cream called life.”

  She shrugged, but her impish smile was enticing. She intrigued him. “Okay, let’s change.”

  They changed cones, and Leon tasted the ice cream. It was like thunder on his tongue—the flavour strong but unidentifiable—and it echoed throughout his body. The taste transformed into sensations: the soft sponginess of moss, the velvety smoothness of a petal, the purity of mountain rain, the roughness of abraded stone, the sweetness of honey, and the saltiness of the sea.

  “It tastes like….”

  “Sergei?” Leon sat up in bed.

  Something wasn’t quite right. Hearing nothing but silence, he was out of bed and creeping towards the door when he realised that perhaps it was the silence that had woken him. The incessant drumming had stopped.

  Being in a strange house, he’d left the lights on in the hall, and despite Sergei’s drumming, he’d left his bedroom door open so he could hear any sounds that might occur throughout the dugout.

  Going to Sergei’s closed door, he hesitated. He didn’t want to disturb him, but he wanted to ensure he was all right. Taking care to do it quietly, he turned the knob and pushed the door open to allow enough light in so he could see. The pungent smell of plants and sap filled the room, although where it would originate from was baffling as Sergei hadn’t had any plants with him.

  Sibilant sounds came from beside the bed, and Leon crept around to see Sergei lying on his back naked, on the floor, his drum perched against him, the hammer in his open hand. With eyes closed and head turned to the side, Sergei was whispering a language Leon couldn’t identify.

  Lying there like that, he looked primeval. Leon could imagine him beneath a tree, little animals scurrying around his prone body. The room itself felt electrified with a current that was at once powerful and calm, but capable of suddenly swirling into a deadly storm.

  Taking care not to disturb him, Leon sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the person lying before him. Sergei’s nose wasn’t as bony as he’d initially thought it was. It still reminded him of a beak, though. But it was part of Sergei’s character and could be no other way. Like his nose, his face gave the general impression of being bony, but perhaps it was the angularity of it, softened only by the pillowy lips that were gradually being obscured by the young beard and moustache.

  Every ounce of Sergei was toned muscle. His chest was far broader than it was deep, and although his pecs were slightly rounded, now that he was relaxed on his back they lay relatively flat. The bruises were visible in the subdued light, as was the tattoo, which although not artistic, carried a raw primitiveness that reminded Leon of cave paintings. Sergei’s nipples were contracted and surrounded by a few hairs, matching the smattering in the middle of his chest. The light didn’t allow Leon to see their colour, but he knew they were closer to the stark orange of his beard than the blonder colour of his hair and moustache.

  Leon visually traced the contours of Sergei’s forearm, which disappeared beneath the frame drum that also covered part of his hip and lower body. His ribs were raised high against the concave of his stomach, which rose and fell slightly as Sergei whispered. From beneath the edge of the drum, Sergei’s flaccid cock lay on a bed of orange curls, the visible edge of the pubic triangle denoting the inner nook of Sergei’s strong, lithe thighs.

  If it wasn’t for the powerful musculature of Sergei’s legs, he would have very bony knees. For some reason the seeming incongruence of his bony knees with his beautifully smooth, shaped feet and toes drew a smile from Leon. Going by the knees, Leon would have thought his toes would have been knobbly, but they were long and straight.

  A shiver from Sergei put a halt to Leon’s examination. He pulled a blanket from the bed and, with great care, draped it as lightly as he could over Sergei’s still form. It seemed important that he didn’t interrupt whatever it was Sergei was doing, and with Sergei’s continued whispering, Leon deemed he’d been successful.

  A powerful wave of affection and the desire to protect rolled through Leon. He stretched out on the edge of th
e bed and watched Sergei, wondering where Sergei’s mind had taken him. It made him think of his own dream journey—to an ice cream with a taste of life.

  LEON WOKE to the clatter of dishes and cutlery. Some watchdog he was. Someone could have broken in and cooked an eight-course degustation meal. Opening his eyes, he found the blanket he’d thrown over Sergei now covering him. He looked over his shoulder, but the bed was empty. Not that it came as much of a surprise, considering the noise in the kitchen.

  Once dressed and his ablutions completed, Leon made his way out to the kitchen, where Sergei was sitting eating a massive plate of scrambled eggs on toast, his dinner plate from last night off to one side with a few scraps of lettuce and capsicum floating around on it.

  “Hungry?” Leon asked humorously.

  “Not anymore,” Sergei said around his mouthful of toast and eggs. He moved his head as he swallowed, as though he hadn’t bothered to chew his food at all and was trying to swallow it whole. “There’s breakfast in the microwave for you. Should still be hot, or warm at least.” He shovelled another load of food into his mouth.

  Testing the temperature of the scrambled eggs, it was a bit cooler than Leon would’ve liked, but he didn’t want to zap it and make the toast soggy. He sat opposite Sergei and began cutting into the toast. “What were you doing last night?”

  “When?”

  Curling his lip, Leon directed a disdainful glance at Sergei. “All fucking night.”

  “I wasn’t doing the same thing all night, so I don’t know which part you’re talking about.”

  “The drumming.”

  “That was just to assist me. The drum is a bit like my safety gear.” The sly grin Sergei wore suggested it was anything but. “Did you miss me last night, Leon?”

  “What? Why would I miss you?”

  “You were in my bed.”

  “I accidentally fell asleep when I put the blanket over you.”