Whatever the Impulse

by Tina Amiri

  A knock on the door pulled him away from the mirror to confront another familiar face.

  “How’s your voice this morning?”

  “Fine,” Night rasped, dressed in a hotel bathrobe.

  “Glad to almost hear that.” Brandt lifted the steaming cup in his hand a little higher. “Here. I brought you some herbal tea. Believe it or not, this really helps.”

  Night took it to a table and sat down. He anticipated a comment, from Brandt, on last night’s disaster.

  “Hey, the fire actually gave our tour another boost. They’re calling you a hero for going back in to check on your band mates and fans. I don’t know what you were thinking, but we’re lucky nothing happened to you, or anybody else. Now, go get ready. You’re a bloody mess. We have plans for today, and I want to get out of here before anyone tries to change them. Pack what you need for a sleepover.”

  Night took another sip and tested his voice. “I need a break, so it better not involve a gig.”

  “Hell, no, I have friends near Boston. Tonight we’re guests at a home that will impress even you, Morgen Dahlsi.”

  Brandt left a message with the front desk before he escorted Night to a rental car. Heading toward Plymouth, Brandt drove from ramp to ramp, switching Massachusetts’ highways as though he’d come back to his hometown.

  “These are all nature reserves,” he pointed out. “When was the last time you saw so much green?”

  Night had already noticed the green, the pines—the cool, briny morning air that made him expect to see his old driveway at any moment. “I don’t remember.”

  “Then take it all in. It can’t all be stadiums and bright lights. Today, you get to ground yourself.”

  Brandt stopped the car near a dilapidated boardwalk. “Follow me… There is one thing that should be part of any cross-country tour.” He slammed the car door, then hurdled over some rocks to reach the ocean. He squatted at the water’s edge and peered over his shoulder. “Come here, Morgen, and shake hands with the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Night mimicked him, watching his hand beneath the surface as sheets of cloudy water swilled forward and ebbed. With the tide also came a thought—how so many people had died in the past year as he evolved. Had he unwittingly bargained for knowledge in exchange for the lives of everyone he knew, and did it matter if he didn’t regret any of it?

  “Who are you?” Brandt demanded, shattering Night’s reverie. “I would do anything to find out. Sometimes you’re like a child, still learning about the world. Yet you’re a genius in your own right, and also private and mature…when you’re not obligated to put on a show.” He rose and climbed onto the boardwalk, only a few feet away.

  Night joined him at the railing and leaned on one hand in the identical fashion. Several moments passed before he responded. “There are things that nobody in the world can know,” he stated, still guarding his voice, “…but I would tell you.”

  “Oh?”

  Night continued evenly. “You’ve taught me so much. You care about what I do, but not like some people—in a good way, like you really care.”

  Brandt’s face brightened with amusement as he watched Night chase after every elusive word. “I do, Morgen. So, what’s this secret you keep alluding to?”

  “It’s just that…I want to tell you something…that I’m…I’m really…” He scratched his head.

  Brandt’s simper broke into a laugh. “Please, Morgen. You’re putting me through a slow death, here.”

  Night recognized the pain that ripped through his hip for what it probably was: a warning from Morgen. Dead or alive, he was telling him to stop right there.

  “I’m really just glad I met you.”

  Brandt’s posture collapsed. “Pretty loaded intro if that’s all you meant to say, you liar. But I’ll get it out of you yet. Let’s go.”

  After a day of tourist attractions, Brandt’s travel route had boomeranged from Boston to Plymouth, then along the Blue Hills to Milton. Brandt found his friend’s sprawling residence effortlessly, and the pale stone house, with its impressive gardens, did not betray his earlier account of its grandeur.

  They sat down for a late dinner with Brandt’s friend Keith and his new wife, Jacqueline. They were served like patrons in a restaurant. Night also noticed the enormous house had several staff to support it—undoubtedly all better qualified than Sandy.

  “So how’s the Boston theater industry?” Brandt asked, changing the subject from their past association through the Hollywood scene.

  “Not as good as the New York modeling game,” Keith replied, winking at Jacqueline.

  “I’ll bet,” Brandt mused, his words leaving behind a hint of frost that Night could easily detect, sitting right beside him. “I’m sure your wife could raise the standards in both.”

  Jacqueline grinned his way, but her eyes bounced back to the rock star. “I just bought your record. It’s really good. Amazing. And your lyrics are very clever.”

  “I had a lot of help,” Night confessed.

  “You’re too modest.”

  There was little mistaking anymore when a person really wanted him, but these opportunities had become strangely meaningless, somewhere down the line. The people that wanted him included almost everybody—a conquest he decided he would have exchanged in an instant for an encounter with just one person who he actually wanted in return.

  Shortly after dinner, Jacqueline slid back her chair. “Please, excuse me, but I have to get ready for this evening.”

  Brandt nodded as Keith explained.

  “It could be another big contract for Jacqueline. You understand. We both regret that the tour couldn’t part with you a day earlier, or later, but that’s how it goes. So, make yourselves at home…Brandt, my friend. You know the place. And when you’re ready, just ask one of the staff to prepare your rooms or room, or whatever.”

  “Yeah, great. Thanks.”

  ****

  Brandt watched Night walk away as one of the servants led him to the nearest washroom.

  “He’s intriguing,” Keith remarked. “Maybe after the tour is finished he would be interested in trying some local alternative theater for a change. Or maybe both of you can come back here for a visit and the four of us can just entertain each other.”

  Brandt hesitated. “I don’t think so and no.”

  Keith shook his head. “That’s always been your problem, Brandt…everything belongs to you.”

  Brandt’s manner grew testy. “I prefer it to your philosophy that everything belongs to everybody.”

  “Well, that’s a shame.” Keith grinned lightly and stood up. “Enjoy your evening, Brandt.”

  ****

  The evening was one to enjoy. The outside temperature had dropped, but the ground surrendered the heat it had absorbed during the day. This created a sub-tropical evening in the grand garden of dark foliage and flowering hibiscus trees.

  On the banks of a manmade stream, both of them paused to admire one of the many imported sculptures. A number of birdbaths and fountains also asked to be spotted, between the shrubs and lanterns, but Brandt didn’t notice them in the presence of the human sculpture right next to him.

  From the textured iridescence that bordered Night’s youthful face to the faultless lines of his body, Brandt could no longer resist satisfying his fantasy inside this Garden of Eden. He turned and placed his hand on the open collar of Night’s shirt and caressed the seam.

  “I’d like to actually see what I see in my head… May I?” Brandt asked, releasing the next button over Night’s chest. “Can I undress you?”

  “You don’t usually ask.”

  “We’re not working.”

  Night straightened his shoulders and gazed into the distance, like a mannequin ready to be made over. The cotton shirt landed around Night’s hikers, along with Brandt, who dropped to one knee to loosen the laces. Brandt sensed no resistance from his human artwork that waited, with soles bare against the tepid flagstones, for the rest of his clothing t
o be peeled away in ritualistic measure.

  The moonlight reflected off every waxy leaf around them, the celestial glow painting Night’s skin a homogeneous stony gray and his loose hair a complimentary mineral white.

  “You look like you were stolen from Versailles,” Brandt offered gently, “…a monument that has come to life. Let me see. Step back a little. Tilt your hip into those vines a bit more… Even more. Now, look over this way. Put that arm slightly behind you. Perfect.”

  A mild snicker shook Night’s silhouette, and Brandt felt a hunger pang surge through his gut as he feasted on the sculpture he’d created.

  “Ah…” Brandt sighed, feigning a stumble. “He stands before me with the radiance of Apollo, the dilemma of Narcissus and the burden of Atlas. Tell me,” Brandt implored, “what is it exactly that weighs upon your shoulders? …You still haven’t told me.”

  Night released his pose and flashed a coy grin. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I’d believe anything from you. What wouldn’t I believe?”

  “That I’m not who everyone thinks.”

  “Yeah, now tell me something I don’t know.”

  ****

  Night had eluded temptation, for the second time in one day, through Brandt’s misunderstanding, but he so wanted to pour his story out to him. He bowed his head in shame to Morgen, although it was Brandt in front of him, picking up his chin.

  “You live in your own secret world.” Brandt felt his face with one hand. “Where is it?” The blaze of scarlet hair over Brandt’s head gave the illusion of being connected to the explosiveness behind his pupils. “I want to go there, Morgen. Tell me about that place.”

  Brandt deserved to know the truth…his best friend who had welcomed him into the real world more genuinely than anyone from his old life, new life, or even his dream world. Night allowed their lips to join and he started to kiss Brandt in just the way he was first taught by Daphne, but he stopped, abruptly.

  “Do you mind?” Night asked on the fuel of that thought. “Can we go up there?” He gestured at a low bridge that arched over a manmade stream.

  “After you…”

  ****

  On the summit of the stone bridge, Brandt’s exquisite, unreal monument raised its arms, in slow motion, then locked them behind the shoulders of the mortal caught in its sight.

  But Night’s mortality was revealed through the pulsing Brandt felt as his mouth traveled up his neck. He nuzzled the diamond-studded ear before he bit into the silvery-white wisps behind it and ran them through his lips.

  Brandt ripped open the first few buttons on his own shirt, then waited for Night to completely remove it before he resumed his exploration of almost superhuman perfection. He clutched Night’s platinum head against himself and peeked over his shoulder. He found the marks on the star’s back were nearly washed away by the grace of the moon.

  “What kind of idiot… You actually wanted this?”

  “No,” Night snapped.

  “Then how could you let somebody do that to you?”

  “I didn’t. I was kind of asleep.”

  “Oh, that’s right, because you were drugged out of your skull in bad company?” Brandt’s chin swayed against his hair. “What you did was plain stupid. I could just spank you—for real!” Brandt brought back his hand, only to have his friend turn his chest into a springboard.

  “Relax, Morgen. Help me out a little. You like this sort of thing?” he asserted a little more than questioned. He pressed down on Night’s arms until the body attached to them sank to its knees. “Would you like me to take control?”

  Night’s face tilted up. “Yes.”

  Brandt kneeled as well and leaned forward, wordlessly persuading his submissive to lay back. He guided Night’s wrists between two sets of teardrop-shaped bridge rails while he searched out Night’s tongue with his own. Yet, the moment he found it he withdrew to say something else.

  “Don’t move?” Night guessed.

  Brandt didn’t realize how often he must have said this in the dressing room. “Well…” he returned in a mock huff, “not until I say it’s okay.” Straddling Night’s hips, he sat up to slip the thin leather belt from his own waist.

  Through anticipation, his subject gripped the backs of the rails with the intensity of his stare as Brandt leaned down and threaded the end of his belt through the buckle and pulled it tight around one of Night’s wrists. Two rails over, he trapped the other one in a simple overhand knot and fastened the remaining length to the rail. “How’s that?”

  Night chortled. “How should it be? Why am I letting you do this?”

  Brandt, briefly, placed one finger over Night’s lips. “I’m serving you, aren’t I? I’m pleasing you, am I not? You already know you like it.”

  “Then I don’t understand myself.”

  “I understand you, Morgen.” Brandt picked up his strewn plaid shirt and ripped a strip off along the base. “You hold many burdens inside you, and every so often you want to surrender them, even if just for a short time.” He snapped the material taut to tease him again.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “That depends. I suggest you shut up now and just respond where appropriate.” Then he leaned in to wrap the cloth around Night’s eyes.

  “Right now you can forget everything. You don’t have to concentrate on anything except for what you want to see in your own mind. You don’t have to think about the things you haven’t done, or should be doing, not even how you could be pleasing me…not when you simply…can’t. Sometimes we need a little help to achieve this for ourselves.” He brushed his hands up Night’s forearms and clasped both of his hands inside of his own.

  “You get to shut out all your responsibilities, without any guilt, without any choice.” He opened his fingers against one of Night’s palms and silently admired the smaller hand span of his young superstar lover. He sent his other hand to the back of Night’s thigh. “In these moments, the whole world can turn without you because you’ve left it. Nobody expects anything from you at all, and that is a rare ecstasy…isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It’s like being back…”

  “In time?” Brandt supplied. He skimmed Night’s throat with his lower lip, until he reached his mouth, and then he sat up. “There doesn’t have to be any pain, except for the wonderful agony of feeling yourself stripped of all responsibility.”

  Night’s face revealed acquiescence, despite his words. “And control?”

  “Semantics, Morgen. You’re simply allowing someone else to drive, to choose for you, think for you, work for you—do your bidding without you even having to ask.”

  ****

  His head weighed heavily in Brandt’s hand, but he still nodded. It was the past. It was a taste of his old life in the emerald shoreline, but without any of the misery.

  Every second brought with it another surprise and fresh expectations. Brandt’s massaging expertise turned every journey, over any part of his body, into erotic bliss. Brandt used several elements to create pleasure. His fingers plied the muscles in his thighs and rear while his lips, tongue, and even his teased hair played a part in arousing what nobody was ever supposed to see…according to someone he didn’t care to remember right now. But as Brandt kept pointing out, he had no choice. It would not only be seen; it would be grasped, caressed, and tasted.

  His heartbeat became amplified all around him, pounding almost in stereo with Brandt’s. His whole body coursed with electricity when his friend’s tongue delivered a barrage of tormenting little sweeps to his fully alert private part. His own hands longed to jump down there too. The fact that they couldn’t, snatched the air from his lungs and intensified the pleasurable prickling that traveled from his scalp to all the way down his legs.

  He felt some aversion when Brandt’s finger went into his mouth, but he soon realized that the more he hated it, the more he liked it. The finger left his mouth anyway as the hand attached to it dove between his legs and made him
jolt.

  Night pressed against the weathered marble as Brandt made him sweat, his fingertip casting a numbing effect on its mark. Night stirred his hips to either displace it or invite it in deeper inside. His chest began blazing at the sensation of hot breath, and a rough chin between his pelvis, and the anticipation of action on both top and bottom. He bucked again as Brandt’s finger finally attempted to go deeper, raising him from the inside.

  “Morgen, you’re either extremely resilient or you have uncharted territory here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, Brandt. Just show me everything.”

  Brandt chuckled. “I’m not one to show you everything, but it’s nice that you’re signing up for a few more nights.”

  That was all he said, and then his mouth touched down to mercifully complete the hardening that had threatened to reverse itself. Night gasped and then cried out as Brandt drew against him and entered him, both at the same time. Brandt started to grant deeper access to his throat, which overrode any pain he felt as Brandt curled his finger inside him. Then, all at once, Brandt withdrew. He unfastened one wrist and then directed him to turn over, but Night stopped halfway and pulled his other wrist free before tearing off his blindfold.

  “I want to try without,” Night declared, flushed and dizzy. He reached out for an embrace, but Brandt lowered Night’s arms and, with a melancholy stare, pressed him down to where he wanted him right now.

  “You’re exactly what I contemplated…”

  ****

  Brandt didn’t finish his thought out loud, but the fact was he knew the divines of legend and they were selfish and fickle in their ways. And likely by daytime tomorrow, this particular one would return to being a stone sculpture in his presence, only to thaw into flesh for some new gods or goddesses.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven