Dead Man

Part 1 One BIG part only.

DEAD MAN

Written by Juxian Tang (juxiantang@hotmail.com)

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/gilliams/831

This story is for Phillip

He was 6' tall, slender and muscular. He had nothing on but baggy black pants
hanging loosely on his narrow hips and a tiny sleeveless t-shirt that left his
straight beautiful shoulders bare. It outlined his firm pecs and hard stunningly
small nipples. His curly dark hair was cropped very short and it gave him both
sensual and savage look. There were small round tinted glasses set casually on
the bridge of his nose that sparkled red and blue when catching the spinning
lights.

He moved like a strong light animal, enjoying his own grace. His lids were
half-mast over an absent, introspective look and his chocolate-colored arms flew
in the air as if he was letting a bird loose.

I couldn't take my eyes from him. Wasn't he stunning? My nostrils flared as if I
smelled his scent. I downed my vodka in one gulp and walked into the dancing
crowd. He was with his friends there, I suppose, but they didn't keep together
too closely. I pushed somebody and shrugged apologizing - and then I got in
front of him, joining his motions.

It took several seconds before his eyes looked at me over the rim of the
glasses. I smiled to him showing it was not an accident that I was there. My
heart jumped sweetly when I recognized the measuring gaze he gave me - and then
he smiled back.

Jesus, how I loved it. It seemed blood sang in my veins. This feeling - it alone
was enough to make me hard. The moment when I understood that an exquisite male
I liked, liked me, too. I knew he was interested - the same definitely as if
there was a thread drawn between us. His eyes became dreamy again when he
submerged in the dance - but he felt I was near, I was sure.

The music changed non-stop to "Sash!" newest composition - and then he looked at
me once more. I leant to him slightly and said:

"You dance superbly."

I had to scream and even like that I was sure he didn't hear me but guessed my
words on my lips. He chuckled and answered:

"Thanks. You too."

I meant it, he didn't. But it didn't matter. He took the glasses off and hooked
them on the t-shirt. The crowd drove us closer. We were face to face, propped to
each other by somebody's backs and sides. I licked my lips; I felt light-headed
- as if I was drunker than I really was. He looked at me all the time now and
his soft pale mouth curved in a stealing smile. Now I could see he was older
than I supposed at first - maybe, 26-28. A man, not a boy - and this man was
what I wanted.

The composition died away - in the moment of silence I could hear the hum of
hundreds of voices in the hall of the disco - and then Tory Amos started her
slow gentle song. I saw some people leaving the dancer-floor - and some breaking
to the pairs. I waited - I didn't know what he would do - and when he reached
his arms around me, I laughed happily tossing my head back.

His skin was smooth and warm and his long limbs enveloped my ribcage while we
swayed under the sweet music together. He was 3" taller than I was and I could
feel his breath on my temple. He held me firmly and tenderly, with his long
strong fingers playing along my spine. I leant to his shoulder and lay my cheek
on it, sensing how silky it was and how hard his bones were under it.

He whispered something. I felt it by the flow of air on my face. I had my arms
around his waist and I tightened them as if showing that I heard him, even
though I didn't know what he said.

My cock was hard. I knew he could feel it because our pelvises were pressed to
each other. And I could feel something, too, it made me smile lazily and happily
- his prominent bulge - he was not soft, was not soft at all. Then he rubbed it
against mine and I moaned.

"Little whore," he whispered it right in my ear and I heard it. "Little horny
blond whore."

We nearly stopped. The only parts of our bodies that moved were our bottom
bellies dancing against each other. I pressed my mouth to his shoulder, letting
him feel my teeth through my lips. He gasped - but it was not with pain. His
palms slid over my back and lower, under my ass, squeezing it tightly, then
letting go.

"Do you want it, pretty slut?" he whispered and I heard him again. I felt
everything inside me swinging. It was just what I could dream about. "I know you
want it," he went on.

I nodded. He could feel it because my face was pressed to his shoulder. His arms
unlocked around me and at the same moment his steely fingers clasped on my upper
arm. He walked out of the crowd, dragging me behind himself, even without
turning back to me. The chill went through my body when we were out of the
heated hall. I didn't know where he led me - to some corridors, lit and unlit,
through the doors that seemed locked but were not.

It was a storage room. He groped for the light on the wall and when it switched
on, I could see the heaps of paper boxes and wire boxes piled around, some
empty, some full of cans and something else. The temperature was so low there
that I noticed the white cloud of exhalation when I breathed out.

He pushed me to the wall and a short smirk, almost evil, distorted his lips. It
was weird how our roles changed - now it looked like he was a pursuer and I was
a pursued - and, boys, did I like it! I met his eyes with a defiant stare and he
took my face in his palms, raising it to himself. His lips touched mine and I
felt dizzy.

His hands wandered over my body as our tongues explored each other. I shut my
eyes - I was floating away. His scent was exactly as I imagined it - light and
poignant and I couldn't get enough of it.

I caressed his shoulders and pecs while his hands slid under my t-shirt and
found my nipples. His fingertips were rough in comparison with smoothness of his
palms. He rubbed my nipples into nubs and then squeezed them almost viciously,
making me whimper slightly into his mouth. He caught my lower lip between his
teeth and sucked it in.

"Oh God," it sounded mumbled but I guess he discerned it. His tweaking of my
nipples became even crueler - but I loved it. I didn't care if it hurt - I
wanted more of it. My cock was throbbing with blood, itching madly, and I tried
to do something with it, to stick my hips forward so that I could touch his
pelvis.

He let go my nipples but not my lips - and then I felt how he rolled up my
t-shirt. I raised my arms obediently. He left my mouth only for the moment when
he pulled the t-shirt over my head.

"Pretty smooth whore," he chanted. His forefinger traced down my sternum to my
navel, poked it violently. Then he yanked the buckle of my pants.

I gasped when I realized he was stripping me naked. It was a chilly feeling; oh,
sure, I had quick ones in the places that were not supposed for it - but I was
not absolutely nude then. He pulled my pants down together with my jockeys. His
palms were so hot on my thighs that I forgot to feel the cold of the room.

He kneeled in front of me - I kicked off my sneakers and he tugged my pants down
from my legs completely. My socks stayed and he didn't take them off - maybe, he
didn't want me to stand barefoot on the littered floor. He closed his face to my
hard member and quickly licked the drop of pre-cum from its little mouth.

"Sweet little dick," he whispered hastily and buried his fingers in my bush of
fair wispy hair. His other hand cupped on my balls as if weighing them. I
whined. I was so overwhelmed with arousal that I thrust my hips forward as if in
the hope that he would open his mouth for me.

"Nope, sugar cunt," he chuckled softly - he noticed it. "You will get it my
way."

Oh do you think I minded? He touched my perineum and slipped further, finding my
hole. For a second I felt how my abdomen muscles drew in - but he didn't care
about it. He just stabbed his finger into my opening, ruining its resistance. I
tossed my head back mewing pitifully. I reached for my cock. He brushed my hand
off easily. His finger danced in me, thrusting and rotating.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes, oh yes."

He stood up yanking his finger out of me painfully and tugged his zipper down in
a slow fluent motion. I looked at his crotch obscenely. He reached inside his
white undies and my mouth formed in "oh" of amazement when I saw this emerging
dark huge tower. I couldn't see his balls, just two shadows in the verdure of
black soft curls - but his cock was something that mesmerized me. I didn't know
how long - 10"? 11"? My own prick seemed boyish in comparison with it. I guess
he had the same thought because he chuckled and patted the head of my cock
swiftly.

The rubbers he had were black. I looked intently how he rolled one of them over
the head of his cock - a stunning sight - this sleek dark film covering the dark
fleshy tube of his member. He pulled it to the end and took me again.

"Here it goes," he breathed out softly reaching his hand between my legs. For a
moment I didn't understand how he was going to do it. Then he set his palm under
my thigh and raised my leg. It was a strange pose, an inconvenient one - my knee
was as high as it could be - and then he pushed it aside until I yelped with
pain in my groin. He supported me with one hand - and the other one guided his
immeasurable shielded cock to my anus.

I had to tiptoe to let him in. The pain when its head passed my anus ring was
exquisite. He shoved inside me with long powerful motions of his strong hips -
inch by inch, until my anus gripped around the base of his cock and I could
touch the floor.

I felt impaled. This long thick thing stuffed me fuller than ever. It seemed I
could sense the tip of his cock in my belly. My chest was heaving. He pressed me
to the wall; one of his hands held the ankle of my raised leg tightly and he was
going to use it for leverage. The other hand lay on my forehead, smoothing my
hair.

"Take it, take it, little white boy," he repeated pulling his member out of me.
Pulling it long - as long as it had to take - until only its head was inside me
- and then sending it back.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't be silent - my breath was loud and broken and I
tossed my head from side to side inadvertently as he pumped into me with brutal
forceful thrusts. He didn't make any sounds - but his body spoke itself.

My cock was squeezed by the iron buckle of his pants that hurt me every time
when he drove in and made it impossible to touch it - but it was unimportant. I
was so hard that I couldn't get any harder. The feeling of being stuffed with
his horse-like cock deleted everything else in my mind.

He spoke again when cumming:

"Come on, whorish beauty, get it, you slut, you slut, take what I give you!"

And then I felt his hot and wet cum even through the rubber deep in my
intestines. I groaned exhaustedly - he was still in me but it was over. He let
my leg go and when I stood on both feet his cock started slipping out of me.
Even though it was that long there was too much place for it when it got limp.

He stroked my hair. His other palm found my cock now - and without a word he
lowered on his knees and wrapped his full tender lips around my shaft.

He took it all in two attempts - his lips, his tongue, his throat were so apt
that I felt faint with the intensity of the pleasure he was giving me. It didn't
take a minute before the bliss became unbearable and my balls contracted
spurting the jet of sperm into his mouth. He swallowed it - and licked my cock
clean and then, still on his knees in front of me, he got a white handkerchief
from his pocket and wiped the trickles of his sperm from his own cock, flabby
but still huge.

He smiled before standing up.

"What is your name?" I whispered.

"Johnny," he said. His voice lost the hoarseness of passion, became mellow - not
a voice of a savage any more. He was not a savage, of course. Suddenly I thought
that, maybe, tomorrow he would put on his tailored suit and would become a
smooth strict manager in some respectable company.

Well, I was right - only tomorrow never came for him.

"What a nice name," I said.

"And yours?"

"Jesse."

"What?" he laughed. "Jesse? I am going to love it."

We walked to the bar-stand together and got our vodka. Then danced again, then
had another vodka and another - until I saw the lights swirling and dancing
everywhere around me and I couldn't help laughing, even though there was no
reason for it. Then, in the tiny pause between the songs, Johnny bent to me and
asked:

"Let's go, won't you?"

"Of course I will," I said and we left.

In the taxi he kissed me. I lay down on the seat and he leant to me, raised my
t-shirt and covered my chest and belly with the pecks of his hot succulent lips.
His fingers unceasingly tugged and pinched my nipples that were already puffy
and extremely tender. My lids seemed to be very heavy and I couldn't keep my
eyes open. I had my palms on his head feeling as he moved his mouth over my
body. I purred with pleasure slightly and heard him chuckling into my navel.

He nearly carried me to the elevator. I came to myself a bit there. The mirrors
showed us - him, so dark and strong, and me, with my tousled soft fair hair,
pink and white face, giddy eyes and swollen with the kisses lips, clinging to
him.

"I can't wait for it," he said in a low voice - and I recognized the resounding
tunes of passion in it again. "You little white whore, I am going to fuck you to
your heart and through it."

"You'll do. Sure, you'll do."

He nibbled the back of my neck while I unlocked the door. The flat was dark and
silent and I hit the switchers turning the light on everywhere, pushed "play" on
the music center. I slid away from Johnny and walked to the kitchen. We had a
bottle of "Smirnoff" vodka in the fridge and I poured it to the shaker, then
threw a handful of ice in it. I didn't take the glasses - I went to the room
right with the shaker where the squares of ice melted softly in the crystal
liquid.

Johnny was dancing. For himself, the same as he did when I saw him first - I
could hear him repeating the words of "Cultured Pearls" song. He was topless now
- his meagre t-shirt lay in a rumpled heap on the board of the bookcase, right
at the framed photo there, the one where Elmor had his arms around me. For a
moment I looked at it feeling the urge to turn it away. Then I curved my mouth
in an evil grimace and whispered:

"No, you will look at it, old fool."

Johnny stopped dancing when seeing me and I walked to him holding the shaker as
a full goblet on the level of our mouths. He laughed when he saw it.

"Right like that?"

"Yep, right like that," I said, stumbled and nearly fell on his chest.

His strong chiseled hand supported me.

"Drunk little slut," he whispered sipping vodka from the shaker. I made a swig,
too. His hands were like cuffs on my wrists.

"Put it away," he said about the shaker. "Let's go."

I just smiled. I walked with him when he brought me to the bedroom. A thought
that it was not okay - to make it on our bed - came to my mind and was gone even
before I registered it. I felt him yanking my clothes off from me. He was right
- I was drunk, really drunk. I would fall if he didn't keep me.

"Dumb whore," he laughed at it and there was some irritation in his voice. At
last he dropped me on the bed. The spread, I recalled, Elmor will get mad if we
foul the spread - but then I realized that Johnny managed to pull the spread
off.

"You are... deft," I mumbled with a chortle.

He stripped hastily, fumbled with the rubber and then I felt his warm wiry body
covering me.

I was so tipsy I could only giggle. I didn't get hard - not because something
was wrong, I loved Johnny, he was the best one and in my mind I was cat-like
horny. But my cock remained soft whatever he did.

"Oh shit, you naughty boy," I heard him whispering when he was not kissing or
biting me, "come on, I know you want it!"

"I do, I do," I muttered but nothing helped, neither his fingers tweaking my
huge and throbbing nipples, nor his ample lips around my cock.

At last he stopped trying. He raised my thighs instead and I understood he was
setting his cock in the position.

"Yes, do it!" I approved his actions and he thrust in. More smoothly than for
the first time - well, I was still opened there.

I moaned when his member filled me once more. I pressed my palms to my belly as
if I could sense it inside me. He rose over me, so warm and heavy, and when I
wrapped my legs around his waist he whispered rejoicing:

"You are going to love it. Oh you will, I know, my white bitch."

His headlong assault was melting my body. It seemed I lost the possibility to
feel for myself and felt only for him. I merged with him and with his long
gorgeous cock stabbing me. I was hot in the ring of his arms around me and I
felt his swift breath on my face.

He was panting loudly now - he was drunk and tired, too, it took more strength
from him now than it did at the storage room of the disco.

"Johnny," a couple of times I said his name - and it made him batter me even
more violently. I could feel the smoothness of his belly on my hands and
eventually I put my arms around his neck pulling him closer to me.

"You little prince whore," he dropped between sharp inhalations, "you little
fuck-toy, pretty white boy slut."

His words and his panting didn't let him hear it when it started. But I heard
it. I heard it very definitely - and at the very moment I realized what this
sound was. The key turning in the lock.

It couldn't be! My mind raced in disbelief - but my body already believed and
responded in horror. My heart, my stomach, everything inside me clenched - and
my anus, too - and it made Johnny yell in delight:

"Yes, bitch, yes, do it again, clamp it!"

He didn't hear. He still didn't hear what I did - and I couldn't deny I heard
it. It was what had to follow the turning key - the steps on the floor -
familiar steps - the ones I knew so well.

What did I have to do? Perhaps I had to stop, to push Johnny away - it wouldn't
help but I could try. Only I didn't do anything. I was petrified. Literally. I
couldn't move a limb, couldn't move a finger. I just lay and stared. At the
door. Where Elmor had to appear.

Then I saw him. The thoughts ran through my mind so swiftly. Jesus, he won't
survive if he sees it. It will break his heart. What have I done, I would give
anything to roll it back, not to inflict him such pain. But what I saw when he
stepped into the room were not his pain-stricken eyes. It was one round eye -
black hole of a gun's muzzle.

Everything was hugely unreal. I lay pinned to the bed by the weighty body of
Johnny and he continued to drill his hips against me while Elmor stood with the
gun in his hand pointed at us and tears trickled in two flows down his cheeks.

"I didn't go to Toronto," he said.

His voice reached Johnny even in his abandonment. Two or three times he thrust
into me by inertia and then froze. With his cock still in me he turned to Elmor.

"I didn't go to Toronto," Elmor repeated, his lips were trembling and the tears
were not only in his eyes, they were in his voice, too, making it thick and
shaky, like a resented child could have. "Nope, I didn't go there. You thought I
did but I didn't."

"Elmor, please..." my words were slurping. The tipsiness passed at the moment
when I heard him opening the door - but my body still didn't obey me. "I can
explain you! It was by chance!"

"It is not what you think it is," he said in a steady manner, as if quoting
something. He turned his head to me slightly but his gun didn't jerk. And when
he looked at me I sensed real, singing horror coursing through my body: because
even though the tears leaked abundantly from his eyes under the rim of his
glasses - Elmor's eyes themselves were void and dull - the eyes of a dead man.
"You have to say 'It is not what you think it is.' Always say it in these
situations."

"Sorry, man," it was Johnny speaking - and some part of my mind wondered again
how sane and intelligent his voice could be. "It looks like I am one too much
here. I didn't mean to get between you guys. The only thing I wanted was a good
fuck. Oh come on, we are all consenting adults, aren't we? Wait a moment until I
get out there and then solve your problems in privacy."

He was freeing himself from me while saying it. One of his hands was raised in a
pacifying gesture towards Elmor. He sounded very calm and confident - but I felt
he tried not to make any sharp motions - not to provoke Elmor. Over his hand I
could see Elmor's lips moving - as if he was praying or cursing. His gun bounced
finely - a black hole dancing in the air.

"So, maybe, you'll take it away for now," Johnny continued, "your pistol. And
you'll speak as a man to a man with him..."

He was on his fours over me when the gun in Elmor's hand bounced once more, much
greater than before - and simultaneously I heard the huge, sweeping bang of the
shot. The stunning force threw Johnny on me.

He fell face down. I think I screamed. I didn't hear it, however. The shot still
rang in my ears. I saw how a horrible ripped hole blossomed on Johnny's smooth
brown back - about where his right kidney was. It was swelling with dark-purple,
almost black blood, slowly and thickly.

But he was still alive. He wiggled on me as if trying to crawl. His forehead
pressed into my belly. Bang. Bang. The gun in Elmor's hand shot twice more,
every time Johnny's body jerked - and two new ugly crimson flowers appeared on
his back. He stopped moving after the second shot, the third one tossed up his
limp body. Then Elmor paused.

It was horror. At that moment it seemed to me there could be nothing more
horrible in the world. The room was misty with the smoke - and the smell - it
startled me - of powder and hot steel - and something else, I didn't know what
it was then - but I got to know soon - the smell of blood. In the silence that
followed I heard my own tiny yelps:

"No! Elmor, no!"

He raised the gun a little bit. Just enough to point it at me, not at Johnny who
lay across my legs now. He seemed to weigh more than a center and I knew I
wouldn't able to shift him - even if I tried. But I didn't try. I couldn't move.
I just lay and felt how wet was Johnny's blood leaking from his wounds on me -
and I also felt I was wetting the sheets myself. I pissed myself. But I couldn't
do anything with it.

"Please don't do it," I croaked at last; my words were hopeless, I understood
it, but I couldn't stop saying them. "Please don't do it to me, Elmor. You don't
really want to do it to me."

"I am so tired of you," Elmor said and I saw how his forefinger squeezed the
trigger smoothly.

A hot wave hit me under the ribs: a moment later I heard the shot. There was no
pain at first, just heat and heaviness of the blow. The gun twitched again.

He is really killing me - I remember I thought it when I felt the second bullet
tearing my belly. It threw me flat on the bed and suddenly I saw immaculate
white ceiling above me. I was like a stone - heavy and immovable. As if a huge
marble plate was put on my chest. I couldn't breathe. My ribcage was too heavy
to raise it. I stared at the ceiling and my mouth was open but I didn't inhale.

"You are dead, Jesse!" I heard Elmor crying out while shooting once more. The
bullet hit me bluntly - but I was no more than a thing by then.

You are dead, he said, I thought. But I could hear him. I could see. Was it the
death? Was I to be like that - conscious in unmoving body, realizing everything
and able to do nothing? And what if I would feel everything like that - always?
When they cut my body in the morgue. When they put me in the grave. When it rot
and fell apart.

I was scared. It was the deepest horror I ever felt. And then I heard Elmor's
voice again, saying:

"You are dead, Jesse... and I am, too!"

And I heard one more shot - but this time it was not fired at me.

Then I felt pain. It started in my chest and grew hugely, filling my body
completely - wild inhuman pain burning inside me.

* * *

I didn't die. My heart stopped twice - in the ambulance and later, when they
were taking the bullets out of my body. I lost two thirds of my left lung and
the spleen. And all through that time the pain was with me. It was me - and it
seemed I was never unconscious enough to stop feeling it.

But I was lucky in comparison with two other participants of that night's
affair. Elmor chucked out his brains with the last bullet - he enveloped the gun
muzzle with his lips. Johnny - his name was John Aaron Taylor, 28 years old, an
elder son of a big real estate company owner. He ran a department in it and had
brilliant perspectives, in everybody's opinion.

His father visited me while I was at the hospital. He was a hugely tall man,
6'4" at least, with neat moustaches and tousled curly hair. He sat at my bed and
looked at me - and I tried to say something - but what could I say besides that
I was sorry, awfully sorry, that I didn't want it to happen.

"God is your Judge because you will have to live with death on your conscience,"
he said at last.

I knew it, of course.

I stayed at the hospital for two months and then returned there after a little
while for rehabilitation. I got the addiction to the painkillers they used to
shut off the pain and had to get rid of it little by little.

This story made a bit of stir in the newspapers - not in the serious ones,
certainly, but in local tabloids. "21-year-old former hustler brings his elderly
lover to murder," it was, maybe, the most courteous one. "And gains his money,"
they added after a while.

Because there was one very ironic thing there: I inherited Elmor's money. He had
the testimony written on my name and no relatives to argue it. Well, I knew how
it happened. He bequeathed me everything half a year ago, when he was going to
have the surgery - and since then he didn't come to change it. That night he was
so sure that he would kill me that he didn't do it again - or, maybe, he was
already past caring about these things.

I accepted it. You can ask how I was not ashamed to use his money. I was. But
what could I do? I had to pay for my treatment. I just didn't have any other
source to live - and, besides, even if I refused the inheritance, I would have
to pay the taxes anyway. I lost my work while I was ill, naturally, and they
were never too keen on me to take me back. Okay, who would want to employ an
invalid and with such a scandal in the past, huh?

And when I put my hand into this money - what was there to stop me? I used it to
live - and I used it to buy a place for me where to live - because I couldn't
live in the flat where it all happened, of course.

That's how I bought a cottage in the city outskirts that was called "Sunny II".

It was the beginning of April - exactly half a year since my meeting with Johnny
Taylor - when I carefully drove my car full of the boxes into the yard. The day
was lovely. Last week was nearly as cold as it could be in winter - but
yesterday the sun showed for the first time and shone brightly. The cottage
looked jolly with it and even the naked jasmine and lilac bushes didn't seem so
eerie any more.

"A good sign," Dennis said.

"Oh sure!" I thought that rain could be a good sign, too. It didn't matter. I
was going to love this cottage - it meant so much for me to get it. Everything
had to be okay.

We got out of the car. The house had an in-built garage but I didn't drive in
there - I supposed it was more conveniently to bring the stuff through the front
door. And all in all, I wanted to come there through the front door!

"What I don't stop wondering," Dennis said, "is where "Sunny I" and "Sunny III"
are."

It was an obvious question. Imagination could prompt you the sight of neat
identical cottages standing side by side, with the same carved wooden tables on
their walls - but in fact, "Sunny II" was a secluded place, away of the road.
Not the last reason why I decided to buy it, actually. I also thought that when
the bushes got blooming, they would make real live fence around the yard.

"Okay, what do you have here?" Dennis opened the trunk and pulled the first box
out of it. "My, it is heavy! Will you open the door? Please!"

I stuck the key to the lock and turned it. Well, I had been at the cottage while
it was made up and while the furniture was brought in - but it was another
matter today. Now I was not going to leave it any more.

Dennis, puffing, carried the box inside, crossed the hall and flopped it on the
floor in the living room.

"Awful," he breathed out. "What do you have in it? Bricks?"

"Books," I said.

"Yuck," he looked around. "More books? And what do I see on these shelves?"

"These are my books," I said. "And those are Elmor's. What do you want?" I
added. "I need something to read and I can't read Steinbeck and Faulkner!"

Dennis shrugged. His eyes still wandered - he didn't come here during last weeks
and didn't see what I did with the house. Actually, I didn't do anything special
- and there was nothing to do anything special to. The cottage was pretty small
- for one person or for a married couple without children. One floor - a
spacious hall, a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen - the door to it opened from
the hall - and there was the door from the garage, too, and a bathroom in the
depth of the house. The thing about the cottage - and only now I understood it -
was that its windows looked at three sides - except North. Which meant that it
had to be overflowed with the sun on a good day. Okay, it got its name because
of something, what else?

Good that I installed jalousie, I thought. As for the furniture - I made it
practically the same as we with Elmor had - bookcases in the living room, two
massive armchairs, a sofa, a glass table and a TV set. Well, in the bedroom I
didn't have a double bed any more, of course, it was just a king-size one,
standing at the wall in the middle of the room.

"Cozy," Dennis approved after a little while. I didn't know if it was the truth
or not - but I was going to live there, not he. "And now you are going to heap
it all with your dusty possessions," he whined while lugging another box. "Don't
you know that people use the removal to get rid of the things they don't need
any more?"

He just didn't like to carry the boxes, that's was the truth. But it was only
one little thing he was ready to do for me.

"I need them," I answered.

"What? This faded bunny?" he pointed with his chin at the ghastly plush animal
of all rainbow colors sitting on the top of his box. It had a leash around its
neck with a square of paper on it informing: "My name is Bankrupt and I belong
to Elmor and Jesse."

"Ugh ghu. I won it at the fair," I informed him.

"And this?" he went on already in the cottage. "What is it, for fuck's sake?"

I didn't know what to say. For myself I called it "a construction". You know -
metal spheres and balls and circles that start rocking and spinning when you
touch them.

"It's for mediation," I said.

"Yeah, you'll have plenty of time to meditate here," he hemmed. "That's what you
are going to do."

He was completely against my buying this cottage. He thought I had nothing to do
outside the city. He thought I would have problems with socializing with people
if I locked myself in a secluded house. He also thought - even if he didn't tell
me about it - that my removal to the outskirts would mean that we would meet
less often with him.

Dennis was my attorney when I dealt with the inheritance thing. And he stayed
with me since then, no matter what. Well, was it right to say that he was with
me? He was near - yes - every time when I needed him. But as for being together
- I just couldn't handle sex any more, you see. The same as I couldn't handle
drinking - okay, drinking was my personal matter - but sex touched Dennis, too.

Nope, physically everything was okay with me - if not to mention these awful
scars on my chest and belly - and Dennis didn't mind them; he saw them by chance
when I was still at the hospital, so, he knew what he was after. It was
something in my mind.

I knew it could look dumb - my reaction when he tried to touch me. All I could
do was to cope with a plain kiss. When the things got even a bit more sexual, I
felt again how my body became indescribably heavy and how I couldn't take a
breath because of it.

Surely, I tried to tell myself that it just seemed to me and if it just seemed -
then I could overpower myself. I knew I had to - how could I be so unthankful to
Dennis while he was so kind to me? Why did he have to be another one whose heart
I had to break? But it just happened again and again invariably.

Well, Dennis was around nevertheless. Another one would lose his patience a long
time ago - he didn't.

He shrugged demonstratively when I put the photo near to the construction - as
it used to be in our flat.

"What am I supposed to do with it - to burn it?" I snapped.

"I am sorry," he said. He always apologized, even when he didn't need to. And it
made me hate myself even more for being like that with him.

Dennis left soon after dark and I spent the evening watching MTV, drinking tea
and shifting the things from place to place in correspondence with my doubtful
sense of beauty. I messed about with it long after midnight - but there was
nobody who would even know it, not to mention mind it. That's why I moved to the
lonely cottage, after all - to be free from any bonds and responsibilities.

A while ago we had teacups with Elmor - you know - such big clay ones with funny
notes on them. He had "Life would be easy without phone" on his - and I had a
figure of man lying in chaise longue saying in the bubble "No roots, no
connections - retired". That's how I felt now and it was what I needed to feel.

At last I walked to the bathroom to take the shower. It was small and light,
with jolly tiles and two huge square mirrors above the sink and above the tub.
When I saw them for the first time, they made me giggle. I wondered what kind of
tenant the architects counted on - a narcissist probably. They really allowed
you to see yourself from almost every side. But I guess I would be able to get
accustomed to them - and, maybe, they would help me to get accustomed to seeing
these coarse pink and white sutures on my chest and belly.

I got to bed and fell asleep at once, just having time to think that everybody
sleeps uneasily for the first night on a new place. Then a bad dream came to me.

I saw Elmor in it - as it often happened. I lay - but not on the bed in our flat
- for some reason I lay on the floor, curled in a ball and feeling its hardness
and coldness under me. Then Elmor came up and raised me. He was so strong as he
never was when he was alive. I felt him dragging me somewhere - and I knew he
was going to kill me - as he sometimes did in my dreams. And again I could do
nothing with it. I couldn't move, couldn't even cry out in protest.

Only this time he didn't use a gun. He pulled me to the bathroom - we were at
"Sunny II", I realized it with a shock - and the water was filling the tub with
rustle.

He threw me on my knees at the tub and I shrieked because I was in pain - in
agony - I didn't know its source but all my body was in it. He stood over me and
watched how the tub was filling. When it was half full he grabbed my hair and
tucked my head under the water.

I jerked. Now I was able to do it - but too late. I tried to break free from him
- but his arms - strong and muscular - the arms of a young man, not of a frail
58-year-old - continued to hold me - and the water covered my head, filled my
ears, nose, mouth. It was hot and it tasted iron slightly. I opened my eyes and
it got there - but the only thing I saw was the bottom of the tub - very close -
and something black there. It was where the enamel was dented, I realized. The
water around me was getting pink, I didn't know why. It had to be greenish-blue
but it was pink.

At first I tried to drink the water. It was useless, of course, there was too
much of it to drink it out - but I swallowed it because it helped me not to
breathe it in. But then the moment came when I felt I couldn't help breathing
in. I knew it would be the water that would fill my lungs - but I had to. I
inhaled. It scalded my chest inside - and now I couldn't breathe it out. I knew
it was all over. I inhaled again and convulsed in the cruel pain tearing my
lungs. Somewhere above me a voice - not Elmor's voice - pronounced with a smirk:

"Look how he is dancing!"

It was the last thing I remembered. Then pink water turned black and I died.

I woke up catching breath desperately. The dark room swirled in front of my
eyes. I was in my bed, of course. No Elmor. No tub full of water. I lay prone
and tried to slow down my breath. I was not drowning; there was plenty of oxygen
for me and I didn't need to get it all in my lungs at once.

During last months I learnt how to deal with the nightmares. They were just
dreams - I repeated it to myself until it really penetrated my mind or I fell
asleep again. I tried to do it this time, too.

Only it didn't work too well. I guess I underestimated the role of new place,
really. It still influenced me. I lay in the darkness listening to unfamiliar
sounds of the house. I heard how the bushes scraped on the windows and how the
glass in the bookshelves rang minutely with some imperceptible vibration. The
shock passed but I still didn't feel sleepy at all. I thought about getting up
and going to the bathroom. Sometimes it was what I needed to get asleep. But I
didn't. It was not that I wanted or was afraid to look at the tub - I knew what
I would see - I noticed the black dent on the enamel when I had the shower
tonight. And I tasted the water that blended iron when I cleaned my teeth.

Then I heard a cat mewing. It was a soft and very clear sound, not mingled with
the wind outside. I could bet it sounded in the living room - if I didn't know
it was impossible. The cat cried. Not like they cry when they are angry or horny
- but as if it was complaining on being hurt or abandoned. And so much
loneliness and despair was in its voice that my heart clenched. I lay in the
darkness and bit my lips in misery. The cat went on crying for I don't know how
long. Maybe, for hours.

The thought struck me - perhaps the cat belonged to the former owners of the
cottage. I didn't know about them anything - just that they wanted to sell the
place quickly, that's why the price was comparatively low. They could move and
leave their pet - or it ran away and returned now. I felt pity overwhelming me.
Poor animal! The nights were still cold and it had to be hungry, of course.

I'll find it tomorrow, I decided. Not that I wanted to take a responsibility for
a cat - after all, I ran away from all responsibilities - but I couldn't let it
starve to death under my windows.

This thought somehow consoled me - and I fell asleep at last. Or, maybe, it
happened because the sky behind my window started getting blue and grey. I slept
almost till the noon - and the first thing I saw when I got up and walked out of
the bedroom, was my Bankrupt bunny lying on the floor in the middle of the
living room.

* * *

Well, what would you think? Right. I checked the house inside out for the hole
the cat could get in or out. The front door had a cat flap on it - but it was
shut and painted over it a long while ago. Okay, after all, the cat could crawl
in while we were carrying the boxes with Dennis and hid somewhere. It was not
inside the cottage now - I was pretty sure after two hours of fruitless search.
I called for it around "Sunny II" - in vain. At last I started cursing under my
breath. The beast brought me a sleepless night and pushed the things from their
places - and now it preferred to stay invisible.

"Okay, fuck you," I said at last and went to have my breakfast. Or lunch -
taking into account that it was already half past two by then.

That's how it started. Well, I refused to admit that something was wrong for
long enough. It is weird how one can sometimes ignore things or give them some
dumb but natural explanations just to pretend that everything goes all right. I
already fell in that catch when I didn't want to see how the things went for us
with Elmor. And now again.

I was clinging to the idea of the darn cat that I could never see and that could
get into the house in a mysterious way, then leave it unnoticed when I saw the
things changing their places or heard the noise at night. Just the cat - and I
told myself I would be an idiot if I let it spoil my life here. I fell in love
"Sunny II". It was mine - for the first time in my life I really owned
something.

I kept the cottage meticulously clean. I even brought the yard in order because
after the winter it was in a sorry state. You have to know me to see it was a
real achievement. These things occupied my days. In the evenings I usually
chatted on the phone with Dennis (and twice he visited me when he managed to get
free earlier). But I changed the order of my day. In fact, I used to sit in the
living room with TV on and loud, without watching flickering pictures, till five
or six in the morning. And when the sky behind the windows was getting
dark-blue, I went to sleep. Next morning I got up well after twelve and the day
went the same way.

Not that it was something out of order for me - I used to lead nightlife before
I met Elmor. But the truth was that now I was afraid to get asleep at night. I
lay in the darkness and the sounds that seemed pretty natural to me on the first
day rose in my imagination and became unexplainable. What is clicking there, in
the living room? And why does the glass in the bookshelves vibrate so much? It
could happen in a city flat, with endless cars and trucks passing by - but
"Sunny II" was in a really remote place. I hated to feel it but I broke in sweat
and felt my heart caught in my throat as after the pause of silence, when I
already relaxed, I heard something shifted in the kitchen.

I preferred to sleep in the morning also because this sleep was never very deep
and practically without dreams. These dreams! I didn't want to see Elmor any
more coming to kill me or torture me, burning my nipples with a lighter, pushing
thick heated screwdriver into my urethra. When awake, I felt heartbroken with
shame that I could even dream about these things from Elmor - from him who was
so kind to me all the time. Except one last day, of course. And sometimes I also
was not sure that it was Elmor I saw. Some shadows without faces swirled around
me. But what was the strangest thing was that sometimes I was not sure that it
was me at all.

This feeling was so strong and unusual that I mused a lot about it. You will
laugh but I even wanted to ask Dennis to bring me some books on psychology, only
I was afraid he would jump on it as on the confirmation of what he used to say:
that it was unhealthy for me to hide from people. Well, when I saw that face in
the mirror, I was almost ready to agree with him.

I was cleaning my teeth in the morning - that is, it was morning for me and
bright day for other people when I looked up at one of those obscene mirrors in
the bathroom - and somebody's face looked back at me. I have to explain - it was
not that the light fell in some odd way or it was an illusion. The face I saw
was not mine so definitely that it couldn't be more. It was a man, maybe, ten
years older, white-skinned and with short black hair, quite tousled. His lips
were pale and pressed together so much that they made just a line - and I could
see one more thing: his mouth was bleeding. His large dark eyes looked straight
at me. And surely he had nothing like a toothbrush in his mouth.

I swallowed a mouthful of toothpaste. I could see him clearly - not for a moment
- but for some three seconds, I suppose, and then the mirror became so dim that
I saw nothing - until it cleared and my own shit-scared eyes looked at me.

My heart was trembling like a puppy tail but for a little while I somehow didn't
register what I had seen. I finished with my teeth and went to the kitchen. And
when I poured a glass of water, my hand slackened and I dropped it on the floor.

I am getting mad, I thought. At first I hear what can't be here - and now I
start seeing the things. A belated reaction, probably. I mean, when I was at the
hospital they suggested me to go through a course of psychotherapy - but I
refused firmly. Why? I didn't need it!

I was close to telling Dennis about it when he was at "Sunny II" for the next
time. I sat on the sofa and he laid his arm around my shoulder. It was, maybe,
as close to sexual touch as I could stand and I was glad I could do at least
that for him. He looked at me askance.

"You have red eyes," he said at last. I chuckled.

"Thank you very much. Ugly?"

"No," he shook his head and I felt his hip pressed to mine. "You just look
tired. Are you sure you are happy here?"

"Oh yes, I am. It is the best place for me," and I meant it.

"Let's say I believe you. I can stay for the night," he said lightly, with a
glance to how I would react to it. "I can get up earlier tomorrow to get to the
office in time. Do you want me to?"

Yes, I wanted. I knew he didn't mean he was going to share the bed with me. Of
course, he would be happy if I agreed to it but it was okay if I didn't. Only it
was unfair of me - to make him sleep on the short sofa because I couldn't cope
with some things inside me or outside. I wanted "Sunny II", I wanted to be alone
in it. And now I had to live with what I bought.

I took two pills of soporific when Dennis left. I was going to break the pattern
and sleep this night properly, as normal people sleep - and for some reason it
seemed to me that if I manage it today it was to be okay from now on. I locked
the doors, switched off the light in the house and lay down. The pills did work
- I fell asleep almost at the same moment.

Only it was not a normal sleep at all. Instead I found myself in the living room
of "Sunny II". I lay on the floor - I could feel it under my cheek but I
couldn't open my eyes, there was something wrong with my lids. My hands were
twisted cruelly behind my back and I could feel how the wire cut deeply into my
wrists. The radius in my left forearm was broken but those who tied me didn't
care for it. In fact, they did everything to bring me as much pain as possible.
My ankles were tied, too, and raised up where the rope fixed them to my wrists.

I couldn't move. Pain was racking me, tearing my body like a horrible beast, and
I knew that it would get unbearable if I tried to do something. But I had to do
it. I knew there were things on the table, just in some feet from me - broken
glass, matches, a knife. If I could get there, I would get free. And then -
then, when they returned, I would be able to protect myself.

I tried to crawl. I drove my teeth through my lip so deeply that nearly bit it
off to prevent crying out. There was a fireball in my chest and when I coiled on
the floor, it rolled inside burning my heart and lungs. I was breathless - and
what I managed to do was just several inches.

Tears welled up under my sore bloated eyelids. And then I heard the steps behind
me. The man was coming back. The one that would kill me.

I wanted to scream - but the only thing I could do - as it happens in the dreams
- was just whisper.

"Elmor?" I asked. "Elmor? Please don't do it to me. Please no more."

"Looks like the fucker is going somewhere!" the voice sounded above me - an
unfamiliar voice - and then a heavy boot crushed with immense force on my ribs
in the flame of pain.

The room was dark when I opened my eyes. I felt a little blood in my mouth - I
bit my tongue somehow. I lay feeling how my fists clasped and slackened
involuntarily.

"Elmor," I whispered. "Why do you do it to me? Do you still hate me? You took my
health - what now? Do you want to take my sanity? You don't like that I bought
this house for your money, do you? I didn't have to take it? Please, Elmor.
Please leave me alone!"

The last words went out with a sob from me. And at the same moment I heard very
definite clicking in the living room. I sat up in the bed.

"Fuck you, Elmor!" I felt a fit of rage. Something like that I felt at times
when collapsing in pain at the hospital - and now he hurt me again. "If you have
something to tell me - then do it! If you want to kill me - then try! But don't
play with me!"

I got up. I was so angry I didn't feel fear any more. I guess it was ridiculous
- I walked to the living room to face Elmor there. The clicking didn't stop when
I entered the room. I walked to the switcher and pushed it. And then when the
light lit up, I saw how the spheres and balls of my "meditation construction",
as I called it for Dennis, rocked and rolled in a crazy dance.

Well, you know it can start rocking with even tiny push. But now it nearly
swished in the air when it did its revolutions. I looked at it and I felt
awfully strange. A part of my mind was still challenging Elmor - and a part was
absurdly telling me that perhaps it was still the cat. Jumped here and pushed
the construction.

But what happened in the next moment wiped all the thoughts about the cat from
my mind. No, I am not accurate. It didn't happen. I felt it. Suddenly I felt I
was not alone in the room. And it was so stunningly definite that I turned
around, almost sure I would see somebody at the door. I was watched. It was
unmistakable. The eyes looked at me intently - and because I couldn't define
where they looked from I tossed about, turning my head like mad. I made a step
to the dark passage to the kitchen - and then I got the idea that they could
look at me from outside, between the planks of jalousie - and I knew I had to
come up to the window and check. But I imagined what if I would see a face
pressed to the window, a white face in the darkness - and froze in terror.

Then it came to me itself. At first just the thinnest vibration of the glass
appeared in the room - and then it grew up, became stronger, violent, I could
see how the glass almost jumped out of the slots in the bookshelves. And it grew
dim. I mean, the glass stopped being transparent. I couldn't see any name of a
book behind it.

"Oh God."

I just thought it, didn't say. My mouth got dry. Not only words but thoughts
were deleted out of my mind. I just stood and watch. And then I saw a man
standing in the door. It was weird - I realized at once that he was not there,
actually - he was not real, I can say it like this, not of flesh and blood.
Through him I could see very well the darkness of the passage - but I could see
him, too.

He was naked - and the way he looked like was horrible. I didn't see anything
like that in my life, couldn't even imagine it. I couldn't see normal skin on
him at all; his face and his body were covered in black and blue patches all
over - and there was dark thick blood sliming out in a wide flow out of his
gaping mouth. His dark hair was spiky because of how matted and sticky it was
and his dark eyes full of indescribable pain looked at me from under swollen
scarlet lids covered in white bubbles of burns.

It didn't last long. I had time just to look at his face and then slide down my
glance over his body - but it was enough what I saw. It was worse than anything.

I was terror-stricken. The feeling was so huge that I couldn't even make a
sound. And the figure in the doorway started dissolving in the air - until I
could see nothing of it at all. Together with it the vibration of the glass
disappeared and the construction slowed down its turns - but it took a while for
me to realize it.

I blinked dumbly standing in the silent room. It was impossible what I had just
seen. It was not there but I saw it. People don't see the things like that. I
had to be delirious. But I knew I was not. Perhaps I never felt more lucid than
at that moment.

And there was one thing that I couldn't stop thinking about. If there could be
something good in all this - then I found this good. The bleeding figure could
be anyone - but I was completely sure it was not Elmor.

* * *

Next day I saw the cat. I was back from the supermarket. I walked in through the
garage door, with my hands full of the packages, and went to the kitchen to tuck
the things to the places when I dropped a glance on my front door and froze.

The cat hanged there. It was a Siamese one, cocoa-colored, with the bottom of
his neck and belly ashy-grey. I could see it clearly because his paws were
spread out and nailed to the wood of the door. He was dead - his mouth half-open
and his eyes glazed - but not the crucifixion killed him. There was a wide red
gash on his belly - and I could see a trail of his intestines hanging out of
there.

I yelped. The packages flopped on the floor messily - and the moment when I
glanced at them was enough for the cat to disappear. There was nothing but the
door - a painted light blue normal door.

At first I gathered the things I spilled - and only after that I came up to the
place where I had seen it. I looked at it closely - as if like that I could see
some bloodstains I could miss on greater distance. I touched the wood. It was
solid and dry and rough as my fingers slid over it.

But I felt something else. There were tiny little dots under the paint of it.
Almost imperceptible. Right on the places where the nails were knocked in.

"I see ghosts," I said to Dennis. We dined out at the cozy Japanese restaurant.
It was the first time when I got to the downtown since I moved to "Sunny II".
Dennis invited me to celebrate some property process he just finished
successfully - but I guessed it was an occasion. In fact, he wanted to be with
me and he wanted me to go out.

I was ready for him to laugh at my words. Either that - or he could look at me
with widened eyes and say: "I told you that you didn't have to stay alone for so
long," - and I was not sure what I would prefer to hear.

"Whose ghost?" he asked instead. "Elmor's?"

"Nope. I thought it was Elmor - but it was not. It was another guy," I hesitated
if to add something about the cat and then didn't. "I think, maybe, he has
something to do with the cottage. At least, it started only when I moved there."

"A haunted house, hmm?"

"I know what you think," actually, I didn't care if Dennis was going to ridicule
me. I even wanted it. Perhaps he was able to prove me that I didn't really see
what I did see.

"No, I..." he was afraid to hurt my feelings, I noticed it. Sometimes he was too
protective about me, too careful - so, that I almost wanted to cry out: "I am
not made out of glass, I won't break!"

"If I was lunatic, I wouldn't regard this possibility myself, right?" I asked.
"But if it is not a ghost and I am not mad - what other explanation can be
there?"

"What did you see?" he still didn't start laughing.

I told. About the sounds and how I didn't want to admit I heard them. About the
face in the mirror that might or might not have been there. And about the
destroyed man that faced me in the doorway yesterday. I saw Dennis biting his
nails. He had this awful habit and that's why he used to hold the table board
firmly when he was with his clients. But now he let it slip out.

He was 29, a lanky man with a long nose and light-blue eyes, not exceptionally
handsome - but sometimes his expression could get so awfully boyish-innocent
that I had almost paternal feeling towards him. I wish I could make him happy. I
desperately wanted to give him what he wanted! But I couldn't.

"This man - in the mirror and in the door - was he the same one?"

"Yes," I said. I didn't know how I knew it - there was not much human left in
his face when he stood there naked - but I was sure.

"Do you know that there was a murder in your cottage?"

For a moment I couldn't believe what I heard. Dennis spoke to me as if there
could be something reasonable in what I told!

"Its owner - not the last - but the previous one. It happened about a year ago.
He was a lonely man and something was suspected only when he missed his work.
When the cottage was opened, there was blood on the floor - plenty of it. And
some other bad things. But no body," Dennis paused for a moment and then broke
in an explanation. "I read about it in the newspapers then but I forgot it was
"Sunny II" when you decided to buy it. Dumb of me! I had to check everything
carefully!"

"Never mind," I touched his hand to stop him. "So, what was with this man? Did
they find him?"

"Yes. Half a year later. In the forest somebody stumbled against a corpse piled
with leaves and branches. There was not much left of him but they did identify
him. It looked like he died a bitter death."

"Drowned?"

"What?"

"Did he drown?"

"I am not sure what was called exact reason. His murderers were never found. So,
you did read about it?" he asked suddenly.

"No, I didn't. At least I think I didn't," then I added knowing what I was going
to hear. "You think I could see him?"

"I don't know, Jesse," Dennis shook his head and a tiny smile flickered on his
lips. "I am not going to say that you saw an earthbound spirit of a guy who died
in suffering and returned to revenge his abusers."

"I might have read about it," I mused, "when I was at the hospital, right? But
then I forgot it. Only subconsciously it still was with me - and when I realized
I occupied that place now - I projected his image for myself."

Only when I saw him in the doorway, he didn't look like anything I could know
about but forget.

"And what about the last owner?" I recalled suddenly.

"A married couple," Dennis said. "They practically didn't live there. The
husband was suggested a job in Pennsylvania and they moved hastily, selling the
cottage to the real estate agency. I am sorry, Jesse! I checked it but it didn't
come to my mind to look deeper."

"Oh come on, Dennis," I shook my head. "After all, I fell for this cottage at
the first sight and I think I wouldn't shit care even if I knew about the
murder."

After the dinner I drove Dennis home - I could do it safely because I didn't
drink any more. We sat in the dark car for several minutes and then he reached
to my face. I let him kiss me - for so long as he wanted it. But when he passed
his palm over my crotch, I clenched painfully. It was not like his arm around my
shoulder - and it was already beyond what I could get. I shivered in terror.

"Sorry, Jesse," Dennis let me go abruptly and got out of the car. I looked
helplessly how he walked to his doorway and hated myself for letting him down
once more.

I drove into the garage of "Sunny II" an hour later. It was quiet inside, except
for the distinct sound of the construction rotating. I switched on the light -
and then I saw the man in the armchair.

He was the same one. But he was not naked any more. In fact, I could hardly see
his clothes, I just knew it was there. His face was clean of blood and not
bruised - pale and quietly handsome face, with short nose and lovely delicate
arches of dark eyebrows. I could see through it - but it was contoured enough
for me to see the details. His dark eyes under thick curved lashes were
beautiful - large and soft and mournful - and I looked at them as if I was
hypnotized.

I also could see his hands, white against the dark shadow of his clothes. One of
them was curled around something invisible on his lap and the other one blindly
patted the emptiness above it.

Yes, he was the same one. In the mirror - in the doorway - and in my dreams when
I was him and died in agony.

* * *

This night my nightmare found his name. I was in the bed in the bedroom of
"Sunny II" - not in my bed, but in a narrow one and set at the wall. I lay on my
face and he was behind me, forcing something inside me. Something bigger than I
could get, bigger than it could be imagined. I tried to scream, to let out the
horrible pain that was tearing me apart - but the only thing I could do was to
wheeze. And, anyway, no signs of my pain could stop them. They wanted me to be
hurt. They loved it more than anything else - a new feeling for them - and they
wanted to feel it more and more.

His name was Conrad Baxter but his friends called him Con. He didn't mind. It
was a good name for him, a right name. He was the toughest of them; they used to
catch the words right from his mouth - and he liked it. He could detest them but
it was good when they looked up at him and said: "Look, what Con is up to!"
There were four of his friends - Gary Troppe (a.k.a. Fatso), Wayne, Reg and
Kevin - the last two were brothers - and all of them were around me at that
moment. The shadows without faces - but I knew I would see them soon.

I couldn't explain how I knew it. I was face down on the bed and the square
bottle of cognac was ripping my anus open - but at the same time I was above it,
looked at it from aloof. It was some knowledge that was given to me - maybe,
even not then, maybe, later. And, anyway, it couldn't help me at all when Con's
powerful hands forced the bottle deeper inside me, tearing not only my anus but
rectum, too. Blood leaked on his hands that clasped the bottleneck, making it
slippery. He pushed the bottle bottom first.

"Get it, fucker!" I heard his voice distorted with hatred and laughter. "Don't
tell us you don't get your share! Buzz for us and the bottle for you!"

I felt something dripping on me. Two of his friends - Baxter's Boys - that's how
they all were called in the neighborhood - jerked off against me and their
precum trickled coldly on my back and thigh.

"Fuck you, take it!" Con was getting tired. He got up and I felt how he kicked
the bottle with his boot. I shrieked when the bottle moved inside me. Its
massive glass form was inside my colon, distending it to incredible volume. He
kicked again and again, until the neck of the bottle broke inside me. I felt
splinters cutting my anus - but this pain was nothing in comparison with the
agony in my bloated belly.

"Hey, Con, how are you going to take it out?"

"Take it out? What's wrong with the slut having it stuffed in? He is so loose -
mommy don't cry - I nearly fell asleep with boredom when fucking him last time."

A push to turn me on my back. They towered over me.

"Look, I can see it in his belly! That's the sight!"

And the heel of a boot smashing on my abdomen.

"Fun! Guys, can we break it inside him?"

I woke up clasping my belly. The steady clicking of the construction was heard
from the living room.

*  *  *

It was barely ten o'clock when I was back in the downtown. I didn't feel
sluggish, even though I hardly slept for an hour before the dawn came. Well, if
I was right, today it was going to be over.

I stood in front of the dark bulk of St. Peter's church. The service was still
going and I could hear tender voices of singing boys. My, there was time when I
was in the church choir, too. My mother was so proud with me. She was sure I
would be an altar boy as soon as I was eight - and I would be the best altar boy
in the world, never mind! Too bad that she got ill and my father used to shove
his dick up to my ass to get his rocks off.

Since then I don't remember if I ever walked inside the church at all. I felt
tentative now - and ashamed, too, that I ignored it for so long. When I didn't
need anything, I recalled God's name only for swearing - and when I got into
real troubles, I ran for help, right? But I didn't know what else to do.

The heavy door opened at last and I saw a couple of dozens people coming out.
Then I sighed and entered. Well, I don't know what I would do if I saw nobody
there. But in fact, there was an elderly woman on her knees at one of the
confessionals and I stood on some distance until she left. The priest, a young
red-haired man, was going to leave the cabin when I walked up to him.

"Do you want to confess?"

I hesitated.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

I kneeled on the step and when he drove away the curtain, I said:

"I am to blame that two people died."

I wanted to say that I killed them - but I thought it would be too showy - even
though quite right.

"How did it happen?" his voice was timid and pacifying.

"I brought the man I met at the disco to our place - and my lover killed him.
And killed himself. I fucked with this man. I mean, I was in bed with him."

"Why did your lover do it?"

"Because he was out of his mind with misery. He loved me."

"Did he think that man to be the reason of everything?"

"I don't know. I just met him on that day - but El... my lover - maybe, he
didn't know it."

"Why didn't he kill you?"

"He tried," I said. "He tried honestly. And now I see another dead who comes to
me. I don't want him. He drives me mad. He... he comes there as if it is his
place and sits there and makes things! I can't stand it. I am so tired. I just
want some peace. I want to be alone!"

I spoke too loud. My heart was falling when I thought what the man could think
about me. Gay, a murderer and a madman. But I needed him to help me! It was what
I came for. I would do anything to convince him to help me.

"Well, enough," he stopped me and I saw how he got out of the confessional. My
heart sank - he got angry, he was going to leave. But he looked straight at me
instead. "Are you sure you came where you needed?"

"My mother..." I started. "There was a girl who lived next door from us. And
when her grandmother died - she loved the girl very much - the girl started
seeing her. Everybody thought she saw her in the dreams - but she said she was
not asleep then. Her grandmother stood and waved for her to come. And soon after
that the girl got terribly ill; she had such a fever that they had to put her
into the tub with ice. And then my mother said it was her grandmother calling
her with herself. She went to the church, took holy water and a crucifix - and
the priest gave her a special prayer that drove evil ghosts away.

"And the girl recovered," I finished with fallen spirit. It was ridiculous.
Something that seemed really bright to me at night now didn't stand any
critique.

I really had to look like a madman for this priest. Coming to complain on the
demons that chase me - or, maybe, on Furies on my own conscience - and asking
for some magic words and holy water to drive them away. I breathed in before
looking at his face.

He did smile - but without mockery.

"Some people do believe in such things. The Church doesn't approve it. But well.
I'll give you the prayer you speak about. I hope you'll feel better with it. I
mean, the main thing is if you believe in it yourself."

Half an hour later I left the church with the phial of holy water, rosaries and
a bit of paper with me. I was almost euphoric - because I got what I wanted -
and because Father Desmond was so kind to me. I was on my way back when I saw
the board of Municipal Library. Well, I knew it was there, of course - I even
used to go there when I studied at the college - but now it made me brake the
car suddenly.

Dennis told he read about it in the newspapers. I could do it, too. I didn't
know why I needed it - perhaps I hoped I would recall that I had already seen it
- or, on the contrary, I would see that everything was wrong and the man I saw
had nothing to do with the man who got killed in "Sunny II" last April. Only
there was little hope to it, I felt.

I found it. At first the little notes telling about Ted Akerman, 32 years old,
missing. And then, last October, his body got up. I looked at the photo - and I
didn't feel surprised at all when the same mellow beautiful brown eyes looked at
me from it. He smiled to the camera. He had a careful smile, like very shy
people sometimes have, as if he was not sure he made it right.

He was a doctor at the local hospital. He was on vacations when he disappeared,
that's why nobody worried about him for several days. Never was married. His
relatives were so distant that they didn't answer when they were tried to
contact. And his body lay in the forest through all the summer, heaped
carelessly with leaves and roots, with the corpse of his Siamese cat on his
chest.

The police was vague about it. Too much time passed to say something - and it
was quite a hot wet summer. They just said he had twenty-seven bones broken
while he was still alive. His lungs were badly distended, even though it was not
possible to find traces of water in them any more. His fingernails and toenails
were gone. His jaw was broken. And he was castrated.

Ted Akerman's body was found nine days before Elmor shot at me. And I knew
pretty well I didn't read about it then.

I stayed at the library for the whole day. I didn't even notice how the time
passed so quickly. I read through one newspaper after another, trying to find
something, some clue. But it was hopeless. I couldn't see even an implausible
version there of who killed him and why he got killed.

And I was pretty sure the name Con Baxter was never mentioned.

I drove home in the darkness and Ted's lovely soft-eyed face was in front of my
eyes. I put the car to the garage and entered the cottage. The phial with holy
water was clasped in my hand. I was ready to hear the construction turning - but
it was not. The silence was complete.

As if he knows I have come to drive him away, I thought suddenly. He hides
himself in hope that I will forget about him or won't notice him. Yes, that was
what I felt. The presence was there - and the silence was the silence of a
scared cornered being. I fell into the armchair and put the phial on my lap. I
faced the armchair where I saw him last night - sitting and groping his hand
over his lap. Now I will do it and he will never bother me again.

And then suddenly I understood something. His hand! The one that floated in the
air. It was the cat he groped for. He used to sit like that, in the armchair -
as I liked to sit myself - and his cat always came and sat on his lap and he
stroked it. His hand moved instinctively now. Only the cat was not there any
more. They were buried in the forest together - but separated from each other in
the world of spirits. The cat looked for him every night and mewed in despair
because it thought he left it.

I gasped. Sorrow flooded me with a huge wave. I nearly couldn't breath with it.
He was so soft - Ted - I knew it, he looked soft and innocent - and he was like
that - and he was killed. Killed so awfully - and was tortured before it as it
is impossible for a human being to imagine. It was not the newspapers that told
me about it - it was my dreams where I was him.

And now he came back to the place where he lived and used to think his own - and
where he met his death - and I wanted to kick him out of there.

Tears filled my eyes. I didn't cry since Elmor shot at me and sometimes I
thought I never would. But now, when I thought about Ted Akerman, I felt how
misery overwhelmed me. Who I was to drive him away? Holy water, magic words - as
if I was prepared to fight a voodoo spirit! Was he an evil one - that I wanted
to intimidate him and kick him out? He was innocent - and I wanted to be so
cruel to him.

My heart was clenching so much that it was physically painful. I hardly hear how
the glass in the bookshelves started ringing suddenly, louder and louder, as if
there was an unnoticed earthquake shaking the house. I drove my nails into my
palms so that this pain could help me to fight the pain burning my mind. Shame
and remorse overflowed me.

And then I heard my own voice whispering:

"Ted! Ted!"

The spheres of the construction twisted with a swish sound in the air and I saw
how the glass in the bookcases got dark and dim at once. I grabbed the phial
with holy water and raised it:

"Ted, look! I won't do it! I don't need it! I don't want to make you go. It is
your house, too. Please stay here - we can share it together."

I put the phial on the table and pushed it in the direction of the other
armchair. Tears stopped misting my eyes because they ran in two flows on my
cheeks now. And it was when I saw a thin white hand materializing in the air -
bony fingers with very short pink nails - the hand first. It touched the phial
lightly but without hesitation and pushed it back. The tiny movement that
shifted it only for an inch on the smooth surface of the table. I looked up -
and Ted was in the armchair, leaning back after he had bent to the table to move
the parcel. His soft intelligent mouth curved and a sad smile parted his lips.

"Thank you," his low husky voice said somewhere in my head. "Thank you for
letting me stay and for calling my name, Jesse."

What did I feel? I went mute. It's true - I called for him, I spoke to him - but
didn't still a part of my mind believe that he was just my imagination, after
all? How could it be that I heard him? Was he answering me? Can the ghosts do
it? He didn't do it before - and I didn't ever expect it, really!

"I couldn't speak then," he said mildly as if reading my thoughts. "Not until
you called for me. It's you who made it."

I swallowed. I couldn't find a word to say to him. That is, my mind was full of
them - but it suddenly got void when I try to verbalize what I thought.

"Are you angry with me?" I squeezed out at last.

"No," his voice was so soft and beautiful - as nothing I had ever heard - and at
the same time it was a human voice by all means - and somehow I knew that it was
exactly the voice he spoke when he was alive. "Of course, I am not. How can I?
You are so kind to me, Jesse."

"Will you stay?" I asked in a small voice - and I saw how he shook his head; not
in denial but sorrowfully.

"I can't leave. I would love to, believe me. But there is no way for me to go.
It is such relief that you agree for me to stay. You didn't change your mind,
did you? You meant it, Jesse?"

I nodded. I was still frozen. My senses just returned to me little by little -
and anyway, every time when I thought about it, it struck me as unbelievable. He
spoke to me! The ghost. The man who was dead for the whole year. Without a
medium, without a planchette and a pencil. Like a real man would speak!

Well, not exactly. His lips didn't move when I heard the words - and even if
they did - I wouldn't see it. His figure in the armchair became very pale very
soon - I could see just some dimness on this place. But his voice sounded
clearly in my mind. And I still could feel him, of course.

"Why can't you leave?" I asked after a little while.

"I don't know," his tone was sad and amused at once. "Perhaps I didn't get in
time when the light showed to me - and now it is too late? Only I didn't see any
light at all."

"What did you see?" I couldn't help asking it. My own memories flooded me and I
bit my lip to cope with myself. But a weird thing - at the same time somehow it
made me reconcile myself with the fact that it was true - Ted was what he was
and he was speaking to me.

"It was dark. Dark and cold. And wet - where they dumped my corpse in the
forest. I was there. Not inside it - but around. I didn't know what to do, where
to go. I stayed there - I don't know for how long."

For half a year, I thought, for the whole half a year.

"And then, Ted?"

"Yes," he whispered quietly. "Call my name. I get stronger when you do. Then
they found me and buried me - and I thought I would be free then. But I just
looked at my grave and nothing happened. And then I got here."

"Came here?"

"No, got. I felt I had to do something, to get somewhere - but I didn't think
about my house... sorry, Jesse, yes, it was my house... and then in one moment I
was here."

"For how long?"

"For months already."

I recalled something Dennis told me.

"And were you here when that married couple lived in "Sunny II"?"

"I was," he affirmed gently. "They didn't see me. Didn't feel me. Just lived
here and that's all. I could hardly believe when I understood that you saw me,
Jesse."

Suddenly he appeared again - less visible than for the first time - but I still
could see his bright and warm dark eyes looking at me leniently and caringly.

"Why I?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "But you helped me to come out. Every time you knew
that I was here I was getting stronger. You pulled me out, Jesse. Please bear
with me now. I'll try to be so quiet that you won't notice me."

* * *

But it didn't come off like that, of course. How could I forget that besides me
there was another man in the house - sometimes invisible but able to be anywhere
- and answering as soon as I called for him? However, the truth was that I
called very often - and that I couldn't help liking it. You can wonder - I moved
to "Sunny II" to cut off the meetings with people - and now I found a weird sort
of pleasure in sharing almost everything with the man I didn't know. And yet I
couldn't give it up - I wanted to hear his low lovely voice saying my name -
even more than wanted - with every day I felt I needed it more and more. I was
fascinated with some things he said and loved other things. After a little while
I could hardly believe there was time when I wanted to drive him away. How would
I be without Ted?

He told me he was getting more power when I spoke his name - and whether it was
true or not - I enjoyed doing it.

"I am around," he answered. "I am here, Jesse."

By day his voice was more distant - maybe, because even though "Sunny II" was
the quietest possible place, still the sounds from the road reached it. But
after dark I could hear him very clearly.

It was not often that I could see him. In fact, he appeared only for seconds now
and then, a transparent figure, white skin and dark eyes. But there were other
things that showed me his presence - and I started loving them instead of being
scared of them. The construction rocking - he said he liked it because it was
light enough for him to move. Dimness of glass and mirrors. And, of course, I
felt him - as anyone can feel another man in the room even without seeing him.

"Are all souls like you?" I asked him once.

"I don't know," he said with a chuckle. "I think they aren't. It would be too
bitter if they were. I didn't see them. Even at the cemetery. Sometimes it
seemed to me that I saw - but it was wrong. Or they didn't want me to see them."

My heart ached when I thought that he was alone for all this time.

"I don't have entire knowledge," he continued. "I get to know some things - I
don't know how - but not what I want sometimes."

"That's how you got to know that they were Baxter's Boys?"

"Yes," he whispered. "I didn't know it then... I just heard that they called him
Con."

"These dreams - are they yours?" I asked trembling when I recalled utter horror
and pain of them.

"Yes."

"Why did you send them to me?"

"I didn't want to. Jesse, I am sorry. It just happened. You know I wouldn't hurt
you intentionally. I am sorry! Was it very bad?"

It was. But the thing was that he had to go through it in reality.

"And what about your cat?" I asked.

"Did you see him?" his voice faltered as it never did before.

"I hear him. He mews at night."

"I can't find him," he complained. "I call and call for him but he doesn't come.
Maybe, he doesn't want to come back to me. They made me do an awful thing about
him - he was dead by then - but what if he knows about it?"

I didn't ask what they made him do. I didn't ask a lot of other things, too. I
just couldn't. I clenched my fists in pity and anger when I thought about Ted.
They tortured and killed him - it still didn't put down in my mind - how they
could do it - with him. How could they? How could anyone?

"Do you hate them?" I asked Ted - and when he answered, there was a deep sound
of pain in his voice.

"Yes, I hate them. But not because of what they did to me. And not because of
what they did to my cat. But because I died in fear and bitterness - and, maybe,
it didn't let me see the light. And I have to stay here - I don't know for how
long."

I wanted to tell him it made me happy that he had to stay but I didn't dare. I
felt so sad and ashamed with my feeling. It was weird - I knew Ted for so little
- but I grew so dependent on him. He was warm - and kind - I felt his accepting
kindness every moment when he was with me - and I knew I couldn't do without it
any more.

Dennis called and asked if I managed to get rid of the ghost. I didn't know if
he was serious - or if it was a euphemism for describing my state of mind.

"Oh sure," I answered. I smiled looking at Ted's transparent silhouette in the
armchair. It was Dennis who drove us together, after all.

I told Ted the things about myself - the ones I didn't tell anybody or told only
one person in my life. It seemed I could tell him everything - and I knew Ted
would take it just in the right way. I told him how I hated my mother for
getting ill and leaving me alone. And how I was afraid to have a baby when my
dad started fucking me. I told him how delighted I was when I realized for the
first time that I could get money for what my father did to me for free.

I told him about Elmor.

"I loved Elmor so much," I said. "I was fifteen when we met; he picked me up. He
was not like others - he really wanted it to be good for me - because he enjoyed
when I felt good. From the very first night he cared for me. It was not just
sex. We met, I think, ten times during the first two weeks. He told me after
that he just wanted to meet me but he was afraid I would refuse if he asked me
to simply meet. He was so... delicate about money. He thought I would think he
wanted to get something for free.

"My life changed when he suggested it at last. And it was the best day in my
life when he asked me if I wanted to live with him," I added. "Do you believe
me?"

"Of course, I do," Ted said.

"He made me start going to school again," I said. "I finished it because he
wanted it. Then he paid for my college. He told I would have a specialty like
then. He was right. He knew what I needed. He did for me everything.

"You know - first three days when I moved to him, we spent in bed. It was how we
celebrated it. Do you know - it turned me on madly when he shivered and closed
his eyes if I touched him in a right manner. Even when we were together for
years, I still could do it to him so easily.

"I loved his mouth," I said. "I loved his smell. I knew him so well - how he was
by touch, what sounds he made, how he went rigid when cumming - I knew all about
him the same well as I knew all about myself. How could I not love him or grow
tired of him? It was the same as not loving myself, growing tired of myself."

I recalled suddenly one of the last times when we made sex - a week before his
surgery. He was under the shower and I walked in the bath-room - he never locked
the door from me. I didn't know if he saw or heard me - he was behind the
curtain - just a shadow in the clouds of steaming water. I dropped my clothes on
the floor and got there to him. He opened his arms and I got under the jets of
water, feeling his body pressed to mine all along - chest, belly, crotch, knees.

Elmor was of my height and, maybe, twenty pounds heavier. His body was beautiful
- smooth skin and firm muscles under it. His pubic hair and chest fur was
getting grey - just a big darker than his hair. I thought it lovely - I loved
everything about him. I loved to run my fingers over his chest. I raise my hand
and pushed it between us finding one of his nipples. It was soft with hot water
but when I started playing with it, it grew erect.

"I love your tits," I whispered in his ear and gnawed my teeth slightly in his
earlobe. He shuddered - I knew it so well - his body became so tense with
arousal going through it. I bit harder. "I want to have a piece of you," I
chanted.

"Yes, Jesse," he murmured. "Yes, please!"

His hands lay on my ass-cheeks and squeezed them tightly. His fingers were in my
crack, patting there, teasing all along from my backbone to my perineum, while
his palms kneaded my buttocks. Our bottom bellies were driven into each other
and our cocks were jammed together, hard and burning hot.

"You can do with me anything," Elmor said quietly and I barely heard him beyond
the rustle of water. "Anything you want."

I bent down and closed my mouth on his right nipple. I felt his body rising
involuntarily as I drove my teeth into it. His hands clasped around my ass very
tautly, the fingers digging deep in my skin. I had the hot throbbing nub of his
tit between my teeth and twisted my tongue on its tip while my fingers pinched
and tugged his other nipple.

Elmor moaned softly with pain and pleasure as his two fingers stabbed firmly
into my anus - which made me groan too, in my turn. He chuckled a little hearing
it. I knew we both were seeping pre-cum - but we couldn't feel it under the
streams of water. Arousal made me dizzy.

I sucked his nipples in turn almost cruelly, knowing that my teeth would
certainly leave bruises there - and Elmor's fingers continued to fuck my ass,
sliding out completely and then breaking in again so violently that it made me
whimper. My anus clamped on his fingers as the spasms of excitement went through
me. I was turned on so quickly and extremely that it was difficult for me to
hold back from shooting right now.

I knew it was the same for Elmor - but it was what we liked - to prolong it as
much as possible - and there was more to come, of course.

"Come on, Jesse," I heard him whispering. "Let's go to bed, okay?"

I nodded with his nipple still between my teeth and it made him shiver in pain.
Oh his nipples were perfectly sore when I let them go; I knew he would feel them
for a couple of days when putting on his clothes - but he told me he liked it -
it reminded him about me even when he was at the office.

I felt I was missing his fingers in my ass when we got out of the tub and wiped
quickly with the towels. Elmor always looked so vulnerable without his glasses -
with his soft thoughtful shortsighted eyes - that my heart was sinking with a
weird mixture of tenderness and violence. He flinched when I passed the rough
terry towel over his nipples and I smiled with it.

We got to bed quickly, almost without parting our mouths. I sucked his lower lip
nibbling it with my teeth as his hands didn't stop moving stroking my belly,
thighs and ass. My cock was all wet - not with water but with pre-cum leaking
out of it. I passed my palm spreading it all along and drew a little back from
Elmor.

"Open for me," I demanded. His eyelids were down and all his face was smoothed
and stiffened in desire. Instead of answering, he braced his legs aside and
wound them high around my waist.

I set my cock against his ass-hole. It was shut - he was not worked out as I was
- and I pushed it in with effort. He moaned softly - it had to hurt a bit. It
even hurt me a bit as I forced my cock deeper and deeper into him in one fluid
motion that almost drove me mad. Then at last I felt my balls touching his crack
and his balls against my belly.

"Yes, Jesse," he sighed out without opening his eyes. "For God's sake, start
it!"

I pulled out feeling how the walls of his rectum leant to my cock - and then
shoved back; now there was no resistance from him. I made slow deep strokes
reaching the bottom every time and Elmor gave out low, almost sob-like sighs in
cadence with my movements. There was a steady trickle of clear liquid leaking
from his cock over his belly.

I made it as slow as I could - as long as I could - but then it became
impossible. I speeded up thrusting more violently, battering his ass all but
savagely and he gasped and moaned under me biting his lips and calling my name.
Then he called my name in passion, not in hatred.

I felt the tugging in my bottom belly growing to intolerable - and then the
relief passed through me as I shot my load into him - time after time, still
making short thrusts with my thighs as if I wanted to plant my seed deeper into
him. I fell on him nearly whimpering in satisfaction, with my face buried into
his collarbone as he wrapped his arms around me.

My cock slipped out of his ass softly as I lay regaining my breath. I could feel
how little cramps went through his body; his cock was searing hot and stiff,
squeezed between out bellies.

"Well, Jesse," he cooed at last putting his hands on my palms. I moved; I
squatted over him, looking at his waiting rapt face, and took his shaft in my
palm. I guided it into my anus that was loosened for it - and slid down
smoothly, until I sat firmly on his thighs.

His cock was buried so deep in me that it felt strange in my insides. I lingered
on the sensation for some moments and then rose up using my legs. I clenched my
ass around his cock as if I didn't want to let it go. Then I slid down again and
rose again.

I knew the timing perfectly well, moving quicker as I saw how Elmor's nostrils
flared and he pushed his hips up to me. I rode him smiling, seeing his face
swept by pleasure. I felt him coming close - and then I sat down again, as deep
as I could. He convulsed in orgasm; his cum was hot and wet inside me - and then
he grew limp on the bed, all spent out.

I crawled down from him carefully. He lay flat and a small smile curved his
lips. I settled down between his legs and put my mouth on his flabby cock. I
could taste his sperm on it and my mucus as I licked it clean slowly,
meticulously. Elmor's face was as if melted in pleasure and relief. I traced my
tongue over his balls feeling wispy curly hair on them - and then I reached his
anus, still opened and slimy in my cum. I shoved my tongue into it and felt how
he flinched and the muscles on his legs became taut. I licked there and he
arched in after-orgasmic pleasure. His anus contracted around my tongue.

He was very soft and sleepy when I finished. I ascended and nestled against him
pulling the blanket over us.

"When the surgery went all right, I thought everything was going to be wonderful
now," I said to Ted. "All our worries passed. Only it was never okay since then.

"He grew distant from me. Never wanted to make sex any more. And when I held him
- he was like a stone, so stiff and strained. It seemed he didn't like when I
touched him."

"Perhaps he worried too much - and burned something in himself - when he waited
for the surgery?" Ted asked suddenly.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "He didn't ever reveal that he was afraid! He even
cheered me up. Oh God. Why did he change so much?! People do live with this
thing normally!

"I wondered what I had done wrong. What did I have to do? Sometimes I just
wanted to go - to leave one day when he was at work - if he didn't want me any
more. Oh yes! I should have done it. But at first there still were moments when
everything seemed the same good as before. We went somewhere and had fun and had
our evenings when we just sat together reading. I couldn't bear the thought of
leaving him!

"Only it was more and more seldom when good things happened. He started having
these trips to Toronto and Ottawa. And then I went to the gay bars and discos
and picked up the guys there. I was never disloyal to him before that! I swear!"

"I know, Jesse," Ted affirmed.

"I didn't want him to know," I said. "But at the same time I wanted it. I
thought - if he knew - he would see how much he was hurting me!

"He knew," I sighed out. "Maybe, he knew from the first time. Now, when I think
about it, I understand. He must have thought me a liar! Taking his hand,
murmuring endearments - while just a day ago I was in somebody else's bed! But
he didn't tell me anything.

"Why, why didn't he tell me anything?!" I screwed up my eyes as I cried out. "We
could speak! Everything could go okay for us again!"

I pressed the fists to my eyes. My chest was heaving in sobs but I couldn't
weep. It was like that - I couldn't weep for Elmor, no matter how much I wanted
to.

And when I looked again, Ted was sitting in the armchair in front of me -
caressing the cat that was not here - and his warm accepting eyes looked at me
with this beautiful clement expression. He shared it with me. And somehow it
seemed I felt better.

* * *

Dennis came on Saturday afternoon. He was going to stay overnight - so, we had
to have plenty of time to enjoy it. We built a fire in the yard - thanks God,
the day was not rainy but nice and mild. Dennis liked it in the yard. He was
quite impressed with how green and thick the bushes became. In fact, "Sunny II"
looked like the jolliest place now - and it was going to be even better in the
end of May when jasmine and lilac were going to blossom.

We played volleyball a bit while waiting for the fire to turn into coals for
grill and then cooked steaks and potatoes on it. After that we just sat outside,
talking and listening to the radio until the air became chilly in the dusk. It
was when we went into the cottage and got settled on the sofa to watch "Jackie
Brown" Dennis brought it with himself.

I thought little about Ted then. That is, I could think about him all the time -
he was always on my mind and it made me happy to recall him. But I closed these
thoughts away and made myself belong to Dennis fully. As fully as I could, of
course.

"Do you mind him coming?" I asked Ted when Dennis said he wanted to come.

"Of course, I don't," he said affectionately. "How can I, Jesse? I am glad he
will come. I know he is good to you - try to be good to him, too, okay?"

"I'll try," I promised. God knows - I wanted it myself.

"You won't see me for these two days at all," Ted added.

We sat very close on the sofa watching the movie and Dennis's head lay on my
shoulder as his fingers were plaited with mine. We switched off the light - it
was just the flickering screen that lit in the darkness. It was not a
breath-taking movie - if you know what I mean. Somehow we expected something
more - and after a while Dennis wiggled settling more comfortably against my
shoulder.

"You are bony," he complained.

"And you are heavy."

He fidgeted again.

"Would you sleep with Samuel L. Jackson?" he asked with a chortle.

"For money or for pleasure?" I chuckled, too.

"Okay, for money it is not fair. For money you sleep with money, not with a
man."

"Yes," I said. "I would. He is a famous actor, after all."

"Nope, I mean - if he was not famous. Just a black guy in the street."

"I would sleep with Helmut Berger," I said and quoted the movie. "Rutger Hauer?"
- "Helmut Berger".

"Yes, he is a beauty," Dennis nodded. "A fallen angel."

Then he whispered almost inaudibly:

"You are a fallen angel, too."

I felt it coming up. Every time it was like that. A tiny line he crossed - even
when both of us could pretend he didn't - and I clenched inside in a tight ball.

"Give me your hand," he asked and I felt he moved it to his lips. I started
trembling but I suppressed it. "I want to try something. It is silly," he
giggled a little. "I read about it in Jenny's magazine yesterday. (Jenny was his
twin-sister.) Perhaps it won't work. But what if it will?"

"What?" I whispered.

"You'll see."

His lips touched my fingers. My insides were still wound tense - but somehow it
started letting me easy little by little. He was not going to try to lay me - or
to touch me where I couldn't take it. It was just my hand. He rubbed his mouth
against it.

"Jesse," he whispered. His breath was warm on my skin and it was a strange
softly disturbing sensation. It was not unpleasant; I still didn't know exactly
what I felt - but I didn't get deeper into trance, it was one good thing for
sure. Dennis stuck out his tongue and passed its tip between my fingers. I felt
chilly. He kissed my hand again - so weird - his lips were warm while his tongue
was cool.

Then he turned my hand palm up and licked over my wrist. I made a short hiss
through my teeth. It could seem absurd - but his touch there sent the wave
through all my body. Right to my bottom belly.

Dennis pressed my palm to his cheek and whispered something again - now I
couldn't get his words. But it didn't matter, actually. I patted his face. I did
it before. Now he seemed not to notice it. His tongue wandered on my wrist
again, up and down, teasing, dancing - and I held my breath because of the odd
feeling I had.

Was it what he read about? Well, they were right. He was getting what he wanted!
I realized it with bewilderment - but it didn't hinder me to recognize the kind
of the tugging in my bottom belly.

Yes, there was nothing wrong with me about it. During last months I had dreams
and morning erections - but it never happened in the situation of the contact
with somebody - then it was always replaced by the awful feeling of shock and
being unable to breathe.

"Jesse, lovely," Dennis sighed out touching my face with his other hand. He knew
what happened to me - he could sense it - there was a tiny bit of triumph in his
voice - and I knew I was about to share this triumph. After all, he was going to
get it at last - something he waited for so very long.

He let go my hand - but now it was not important any more. He looked at me - in
the darkness the light of TV screen twinkled in his eyes. He put both his palms
on my cheeks and touched my lips with his.

And it was when it happened. No, not with me. Not inside me, I mean. I just felt
the presence - the feeling I got used to for last days - only, unmistakable as
always, this time it was even stronger and more overpowering. I sensed Ted. I
opened my eyes looking around, ready to see him - behind Dennis's back,
probably. He was not there. But he was somewhere near, it was for sure.

And then invisible palms brushed my hair.

You have to understand - I really felt it. The same definitely as I felt
Dennis's hands on my face. Only his hands were warm and of flesh - and the hands
that tousled my hair were like... like a light wind, maybe. They stroked me for
a moment or more and then were gone.

But it was enough to send a long wave of shudder through me.

"Ted!" I hailed soundlessly. My muscles clenched in a spasm as I looked madly
around myself. Then his voice - soft and smiley and so familiar - sounded in my
head:

"Yes, Jesse, it's me!"

"How did you do it?"

The hands swept on my fingers - feather-like and swift.

"I don't know. I just did it."

"Oh my God!"

"Jesse, Jesse!" a moment later I felt Dennis gripping my shoulders and shaking
me. I looked at him - his face was very close - then he got up briskly and
switched on the light. His eyes stared at me frightened and worried as he went
back to the sofa and sat down with me. "What's wrong with you? Why did you start
trembling?!"

"I..." I didn't know what to say. In fact, I was trembling now. As soon as I
recalled the touches of non-existing hands, I shivered again.

"Did it happen all the same?" with awful sadness in his voice Dennis asked. "I
am sorry! I didn't have to force you. But I thought I would be able to treat
you. A therapy, you know," he chuckled without smiling. "Jesse, please, forgive
me."

"You... it's not your fault," I tried to say. I couldn't see him heart-broken
like that. But how could I tell him what really happened?

"Thank you," he said, apparently thinking that I lied in order not to upset him.

Ted's fingers ran over my lips at that moment - and I heard his airy voice
almost singing in my head:

"It's soft, Jesse. Your mouth is soft."

"Dennis..." I started.

"You know - I'd better go," he said standing up.

I couldn't bear it! It was wrong - unfair - that I was so shocked by Ted's
ability to touch me that I couldn't cope with myself - and that it happened
right at the moment when Dennis was probably about to gain what he wanted so
much. I stood up, too, and reached my hands to Dennis trying to stop him.

"No, how can you go? You were going to stay for the night here!"

Ted passed his fingers on my palms and I couldn't help flinching again. I saw
how Dennis's eyes became dull.

"Never mind, Jesse," he said. "I'll spend this night at home. Anyway, the sofa
doesn't look cozy enough and I have to have a good sleep with this complicated
week in front of me."

"I am sorry," I said. There was nothing else I could do but to admit my fault.
"I am so sorry!"

Even it sounded as if it was really Dennis who made me react like that.

"Do you hate me?" I asked helplessly. His light eyes looked melancholy and
surprised at the same time.

"No, Jesse. Of course, not. How could you think it? I didn't have to hurry up,
that's all," then he stopped at the door. "Look, next Sunday I am going to have
a party. At home. Nothing grand at all. Just a family meeting. Jenny, her
boy-friend and Auntie (she brought them up). You and me. I just want to
introduce you to them."

"Oh Dennis," I said moved.

"Will you come?" he asked.

"Of course, I will."

I looked at his car until it merged with the darkness and then I returned to the
cottage. I couldn't say what I felt; my mind was a mess. And when I saw Ted in
the armchair, I understood. What else could I feel? I was so happy! So happy
that he could do it now.

"Ted," I said.

"I am sorry, Jesse," his voice was so distressed. I laughed a little bit -
everybody was apologizing in front of everybody today! "I didn't want it to
happen like that with your friend. I don't know why I did it! I just felt I
wanted to touch you so very much - and then I understood I could do it!"

"You wanted to touch me?" I asked.

"Yes," he nodded. His silhouette got very pale and then disappeared - and
several seconds later I felt his palms on my cheeks - the same as Dennis held my
face. Only Ted's hands were much lighter and cooler. "Your skin is like silk,"
he whispered.

I inhaled full lungs. The feeling was something indescribable. Like a wind
embracing you. I closed my eyes. I wanted it to go on and on. And then his hands
slid over my neck and touched my collarbones. It was impossible - he touched me
under the clothes. It didn't hinder him. He just stroked me softly and
fleetingly.

"Ted," I repeated his name. Could it make him go on? "Ted."

He was with me now even more than before.

During next days I found out that there was one limitation in his growing power.
I couldn't see and feel him at once. Either it was his transparent form in front
of me - his smiley eyes looking like dark jewels on his white face - and then I
could revel in his mild intelligent beauty. Or I could feel his hands dancing
over me, playing with my hair, caressing my face.

Once he followed me to the bathroom. He didn't do it before - he was very
delicate about the moments when I had to stay alone. But then he was with me. I
could see only dimness in the mirrors, not my reflection. He touched my mouth
and asked me softly:

"Take off your clothes, okay?"

He asked me about it - he could look at me whenever he wanted - but he never did
it, of course. I nodded. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him. I took off my
t-shirt and dropped it on the floor and then pulled down my pants. I had little
on me - just these two items and undies.

"These too," he said quietly touching them. I did it and stood with my arms
along my body. Now he could see me fully - there was nothing I could hide from
him. I closed my eyes - ready to accept anything from him. And I didn't wince
when Ted's hand slid down on my belly.

I didn't have to look to understand what he was touching. The place where
Elmor's bullets tore my body. I didn't cover myself. He could do it to me - he
could do anything to me. He passed his invisible fingers on my scars lightly, as
if studying them - and, surprisingly, I didn't feel so bad with it. One of his
hands was still there while his other hand stroked over my shoulder. It was as
if he pictured by touch for himself how I was made. He ran his palms on my chest
and stopped at my nipples that stood erect. He didn't virtually caress them,
just patted with the tips of his fingers. Then he pressed his palms around my
pelvis.

His soft voice said with some thoughtful expression:

"You are so pretty. So thin and fair. I like your face. I like your body. I used
to admire male body," Ted continued and I felt his hands circling around my ass.
"Always enjoyed to look at it. I never was with any man, you know - but secretly
I would like to do it. That's why I didn't marry. I was afraid to make her -
whoever she would be - unhappy."

If he was married - he would be alive now, suddenly I thought sadly.

"I would like to be able to touch a man as I touch you," Ted said quietly and
then I felt his hand getting closer to my groin. It was not sexual - and, in
fact, I was very far from arousal. It was another kind of feeling. My mouth
opened slightly when he cupped his palms around my balls. "It's so strange that
I can do it only now when I am... when there is no me at all. But I am glad it's
you, Jesse, I can touch. I like you, Jesse," he added caressing my limp cock
softly - and then his hands were gone all in all. But his voice still sounded in
my ears. "I like you so very much."

* * *

I almost didn't notice as the week passed.

"I won't go to Dennis if you don't want me to," I said to Ted.

"No, I want you to," he said. "And you want to go yourself, don't you?"

It was the truth. Even if I didn't want in my heart - I wanted it with my mind.
I would do anything for Dennis to redeem my fault! I wish I could redress all
wrong I did to him.

In any case, Dennis's party was really sweet. His sister was the same simple and
open as Dennis himself, her boy-friend (or fianc? - they seemed to get engaged)
was cute and amiable and the Auntie was a startling-looking woman in her
forties, intelligent and ironic. I felt awfully touched that Dennis wanted me to
meet them. You can say there was something funny in it - as if he was
introducing his girl-friend to his family - but it did mean much for me. My own
family was not something I wanted to remember - and now I didn't have anybody at
all in the world. Except Ted, of course.

It was almost midnight when I parted with Dennis. All others left by then and we
stood in the hall, so close to each other that I could feel every inch of his
long bony shape. His hand waved reluctantly in the air as if he was afraid to
touch me.

"Dennis," I said, "you are so kind to me."

"It's okay," I felt he smiled a little bit. "What else can I do? Just to be kind
to you."

"One day everything will work out for us," I promised.

"I know," he said. His hand fell. I braced my arms around him quickly and kissed
his mouth; I broke the kiss before my mind was stricken.

"I have to go," I said. "See you next Sunday."

Then he suddenly stopped me and asked with a kind of strange expression:

"Perhaps you'll stay?"

"Oh no," what else could I say? "Sorry, Dennis, no. I can't. And it won't change
anything, after all."

I was wrong. If I stayed, it would change many things. But I walked out. Dennis
locked the door behind me; I ran quickly downstairs and went along the dark
street to the parking place two blocks away from his house where I left my car.

I was there groping for the remote control in my jacket when they appeared
behind me. They moved in silence - just dark shadows - and only when there was
no escape for me they let their heels clank on the asphalt.

"That's all, shit," one voice said. "Stop dead."

At the first moment a shattering thought overwhelmed me. It was Con Baxter and
his friends and they came for me. The same as they came for Ted. How did they
find out that I knew about them? I couldn't answer - but they did - and they
were going to make me shut up forever now.

"You bitch, don't try to scream," another voice advised grimly. I couldn't
scream - my throat was gripped in horror and I felt as the little plastic box of
remote became slippery in my fingers and was lost inside my pocket again.

The man behind me made a step closer - so that I could feel his warm form
against my back - and I heard a short soft click that I recognized - it was a
sling blade coming out.

"Don't make me cut you open," he whispered and I felt this blade - its coldness
and sharpness - under my jaw.

They grasped me at the moment when my legs nearly let me down.

"Go, go!" several voices sounded at once as they dragged me to the black massive
of the park. On the very border of light and darkness one of them turned his
face to me and relief showered me in a drowning wave.

They couldn't be Con's guys. They were black.

By the time when we got on the back alley I resurrected my spirits. Jesus, I was
almost in euphoria. After the dread I felt when thinking that they were Ted's
murderers everything else seemed playful for me. In the back of my mind I
somehow understood I didn't have to feel like that - but comfort was singing in
me - well, what will they want? My wallet? My car? It didn't matter.

"Here," one of them said.

"Guys, we can agree," I started speaking as soon as we stopped. It was much
darker here, under the trees, and I could see only the silhouettes of them, not
their faces - but I could see them clearly - the crescent was very bright above
us.

Two of them still held me - the grip of their hands was painful on my upper arms
and they twisted my arms up and behind - one was in front of me, looking at me,
with his arms crossed on his chest. And there were more... three? Four of them?

"We can agree," I repeated hastily. "I'll give you everything I have. I don't
need persuasion. You can take my credit cards. You will have time to take the
money off... hmm, I mean you won't believe me all the same if I say I won't
report them missing?"

I chuckled. I tried to draw some threads between us. It was - like, you know, if
they perceived me as a human, not as an object, they wouldn't be unnecessary
violent towards me. Only so that they didn't keep silent. If they spoke to me,
admitted what I was saying, it was going to be okay.

The man who stood in front of me unwound his crossed arms suddenly. He found a
pack of cigarettes in his pocket and lit one of them. His face was young, strong
and sensuous, with full light lips and long narrow eyes under heavy lids. He
glanced at me - he saw I was looking at him. Was he going to be mad with it, I
got worried.

But he didn't shout at me. Instead of it he lingered with his lighter alight
under his face - the little orange flame dancing with lights and shadows on his
face. His mouth curved in an odd expecting smile. He paused for several seconds
like that. I got silent. I didn't know what he meant but I sensed something.
That there was something important in what he did.

"Well, scum," he said at last and I recognized the first voice that spoke to me,
"do you know me now?"

"I..." my mind went astray. Did I ever see him? Perhaps... something familiar.
"Do I have to? Maybe, you are mistaken, aren't you?"

"Nope, white litter," the man who held the knife against my throat spoke even
before the first one could answer. I felt the blade making a little line on my
skin, not breaking it, just marking. "Did your lawyer cunt fuck your ass inside
out?"

Dennis? They knew about him? I was flabbergasted. And at that moment the man
with the lighter said:

"I was told I looked very alike with my brother," and he added almost softly
when my face remained bewildered. "My brother, Johnny Taylor."

"Oh."

It was the last thing I was ready to hear. I even didn't know what to say; so
many emotions flooded me at once. My mouth gaped a little and I licked my lips
trying to say something - but I didn't have any thoughts what to say, not only
words. Well, the man didn't want me to speak. The flame died away and in the
darkness I could see only how his teeth and whites of his eyes sparkled when he
spoke.

"I see you still remember the man you killed."

I gasped. I had to say it was not truth, he was unfair towards me - but I
couldn't. Because it was the truth, too. And he was right, I remembered Johnny.
I never forgot him.

"You white bitch, dirty prostitute!" his voice was steady but with the
bitterness that rose in it I could feel he was shaking in fury. "You lured him
to tease you mad shitty lover. You both killed him. And now he is dead and you
are fucking around with another white slut and rolling in money of your lover.
Did you plan it all? Are you happy now? You have everything while Johnny is in
the grave - and you earned it with his death!"

"No!" his words were like nails he knocked into my brain - and the more he spoke
the keener was the pain. I couldn't bear it already. I tried to interrupt him
but he didn't listen to me. "No! No, it is not like that! I didn't want it to
happen! He shot at me, too. Your father..." suddenly I recalled it. "He spoke to
me! He has forgiven me!"

"But I haven't!" suddenly he made a step to me and slapped me on my face with
stunning force. My head dangled under the impact and I made a short sound in
pain. "How can it be forgiven? Johnny... He was the best one! There was nobody
who didn't love him. He didn't make harm to anybody in his life! And he died for
such a shit as you are, for you white worthless whorish ass!"

I felt blood on my lips and I licked it without letting it trickle out. He
raised his hand again and I knew he would hit me once more. He did - slowly and
heavily, with the back of his hand.

"No," I said. "No, please."

"You will pay for his death, you filthy whore," he hissed leaning towards me,
right in my face. "We'll make you feel remorse."

His hands lay on the collar of my shirt - searing hot fingers, I felt them for a
moment before he yanked it open, tearing the buttons in one swift movement.
Shame, horror and despair seized me so tightly that I nearly collapsed. The
hands of his friends kept holding me, preventing any struggle. I could just
repeat helplessly:

"Please don't do it. You are wrong. Please don't."

I still could hear how the buttons clattered on the asphalt when he yanked my
shirt open. I knew what he would see - even though there was very little light
from the narrow moon.

He snapped his tongue in amazement but not in relenting.

"Yep, it looks like my dad was right. You are really messed."

I felt my cheeks getting hot with shame. He looked at my chest and belly
obscenely and then he called other guys:

"Come nearer. Looks like we have one Frankenstein's monster here."

They looked. They chuckled. He passed his fingers on my scars, pressing them
hard, tracing them down from my ribs to under the belt of my pants.

"You lawyer's slut doesn't mind to fuck such a freak? I've never seen anything
so ugly," he was saying it but I couldn't say that his words penetrated my mind
fully. I was clenching in shock and shame. I was helpless. They could do
anything. Suddenly I got a suspicion, a nasty one, what they were going to do.
It almost made me sick.

"Yeah, it looks like there is God," he went on, "He marked you, bitch, for
life."

Suddenly his fingers that were rubbing my scars clasped on my nipple. His hand
was steely and he applied all his force, I could feel it, squeezing it between
his forefinger and thumb and twisting it at once. I breathed out in pain.

"Come on, horny slut," he spat at me, "is it how you lured my brother? Is this
what he liked in you?"

He continued to wring my nipple incredibly hard, with his nails sticking so deep
that I could feel blood appearing around them. It felt like he was going to tear
it off - and I could believe it - he was able to do it.

"Show us your dainties! Yeah, you'll do it, slut. We'll check what was so
special in you that my brother had to pay with his life for it!"

"No!" I screamed aloud. It was useless - there was no one around all the same,
no one but them. And at the same moment Johnny's brother's knee drove up into my
groin. I got breathless. The pain was stunning, going in shock-waves through my
abdomen. And he kneed me again and again, non-stop, holding my shoulders for
leverage. I hung limply in the hands of his guys; the waves of nausea were
flooding me. I even didn't feel when he stopped.

Then they yanked me up and dragged for several steps.

"Here, on the bench!"

I knew what they would do. I howled in pain and despair. The knife was taken
away from my neck, they were too busy dealing with me now - but I couldn't
struggle much. The pain was stoning me. I did writhe when they pulled the shirt
off from me and yanked down my pants. They threw me on the bench naked, belly
over. Two of them held my wrists above my head and two others yanked my legs up
and apart. A hot spear of pain shot through my groin on the right where it
seemed like some ligament was torn.

I stopped thrashing. It was hopeless. I was going to pay just as they said - to
pay for what I had done to Johnny.

"Let's see how honey the cunt of this white trash is!" somebody wheezed. I saw a
silhouette above me - not Johnny's brother, some other guy - and the first cock
broke into my ass.

"See? He shut up," one of them said, "I bet he loves it. It is not a good
punishment for him, nope, Jimmy."

I felt I was choking. Everything in me was tightened in a hard clot. I couldn't
take a breath. I knew I had to, for my own sake I had to - but instead of it my
insides were winding even tighter in a non-existing cocoon. I saw black.

"Jesus, he is clamping there!" the guy who penetrated me sighed out in delight.
My short passing out saved me. I started breathing again. The man made long
heavy strokes bottoming out with every in-ward movement. I knew he was all
inside me because I could feel his balls against my crack when he thrust in. The
pain was pretty bad. I hadn't made sex for seven months by now - and he was
taking it by force. He stuck it dry into me but at the moment the sliding was
smoother because of blood from the minor splits.

I drove my teeth through my lip; it was already bleeding after Jimmy hit me -
and now I tasted more blood. I closed my eyes - when I looked up, I saw their
dark faceless silhouettes above me.

The man speeded up making swift and deep careless strokes. He grunted when
cumming and yanked his cock out at once, while it was still hard. Almost at the
same moment another guy replaced him.

The things had to go easier now - I was wet with his sperm inside and it made
the strokes slippery, not painfully hot and raw. The man leant on me, the weight
of his body wringing my injured groin even more. His face was so close that I
could smell beer in his breath. I turned away. I didn't know if he noticed it.

The third one had an enormous cock. At the first moment I didn't realize what it
was so blunt and huge pressing against my anus - and then he pushed it in and I
screamed in blinding pain. It seemed I felt how my anus ring was bursting. The
pain was searing - as if his cock was made of burning wood. I heard him laughing
and he continued to push it inside me. It was so big I thought he would rip my
rectum before he forced it inside. My colon was distending with it as he stuffed
it deeper and deeper. It seemed endless. He pulled out a bit and shoved in
again, making me shriek in agony. I could feel how my sphincter was turning
inside out around his penis.

"That's the prize cock for the white whore," somebody commented.

I don't remember how long he fucked me - probably it was just a couple of
minutes but every stroke seemed like eternity. I think I passed out for some
moments because I don't remember how it was retrieved out of me. When I realized
myself again, I was thrown on the ground on my knees, some hands held my arms
and shoulders and one gripped my hair. I was still convulsing in pain that tore
my insides some moments ago.

"Don't think about biting," I heard Jimmy's voice hissing over my ear. And then
a blunt wet tip poked on my lips. On its size I understood it was the same cock.
It smelt with blood and shit, my shit. My stomach rose and then somebody
distracted my attention by kicking my side heavily.

"Open your mouth, bastard!"

I took the head of the cock in my mouth. My jaw ached - I had to open it awfully
wide to be able to do it. He pushed it behind my tongue - I retched, it was too
big, I couldn't deep-throat it. But the hand that held my hair yanked my head
forward and I felt it squeezing inside my gullet. My windpipe was covered. The
hand pulled me back. Then the owner of the great cock took charge and put both
his huge - of corresponding size - palms on my ears and started fucking my mouth
with all his force.

I gagged and choked, catching the air in rare moments when he dragged out enough
to let me do it. Spittle leaked out of my mouth untidily, I could feel it
dripping on my chest. The pain that the head of his cock caused in my throat was
raw and burning. Another source of pain was little pebbles under my bare knees I
had to stand on. I wiggled as much I could trying to relieve it - but I couldn't
much.

It was ages before he spurted his cum into my mouth.

"Swallow it! Every drop!" he shouted at me.

There were more of them. They threw me on my belly over the bench and another
one started pumping my ass. Then the next one. I lost the count of them. I am
messed what they did exactly - they twisted and threw me as a doll, bending me
and folding me in the poses that were convenient for them. The pain in my
opening was horrible. It seemed it was burnt continuously - and every cock that
got there was like a red-hot rod searing it out.

I sobbed and pleaded them to stop. I got so crazed with pain that I couldn't
find any convincing words to make them stop, I just pleaded them not to do it
any more. I don't even know if Jimmy fucked me. I guess he did. What I knew was
that they fucked me more than once, at least, some of them. When I realized they
were doing second time I pleaded them:

"To my mouth, please, to my mouth."

"The bitch wants to suck a black cock," somebody said. I tried to do my best
satisfying them with my mouth. I was slobbering on the shaft of one of them when
I felt something touching my anus. It was not a cock, it was fingers. Two, three
of them penetrated my ass. They were not so thick as a cock but they moved,
rotated, rubbed against the splits. When he added the fourth finger, I realized
he was going to fist me.

I groaned. With the cock filling my mouth I couldn't even make much sound. The
man shoved his palm without thumb up to my ass fully and turned it around. The
pain blasted in me. My mouth opened even wider in a muffled howl and the cock
penetrated my throat deeper, to the delight of the guy. The man who was going to
fist me took his hand out to tuck the thumb in - and then I heard Jimmy's voice:

"Don't. I don't want the whore to get to the hospital. We don't need problems
with him."

For a moment through the mist of pain I felt relief. Then pain shattered my
body. He didn't stick his fist it. He kicked my anus with his boot.

It went on for a while longer. At last they let me loose and I flopped on the
ground. I desperately wanted it to be over - but how I could believe it would? I
heard them standing over me, then one of them pushed me with the toe-cap of his
boot, turning me face up. It was Jimmy - I realized it when he spoke:

"We can kill you. We have to kill you as you killed my brother, dirty slut. But
we won't. You don't deserve so that we defile our hands with you. That's what
you deserve!"

And then a foul stream hit my face. It was hot and smelly and unmistakable. He
urinated on me. I curled covering my face with my palms - but then others joined
Jimmy and the jets were falling on me from every side. It leaked on my face and
hair, got to my eyes, trickled on my chest and limbs. I would yelp but I was
afraid it would get to my mouth. I stopped breathing because I feared I would
inhale it. One of them was pissing on my crotch and the other one washed blood
on my anus with his stream.

They didn't touch me after they finished. I lay curled in a ball, stifling the
sobs and listening how they walked the alley chatting to each other and the
heels of their boots reverberated on the ground. They were gone but I didn't
move all the same.

The pebbles were cold and prickly under me. I could feel how wet they got around
me. I was all soaked wet; it still dripped from my hair and eyelashes. And the
stench - I hardly could breathe with it. I raised my hand to cover my nose and
gritted my teeth because my hand was in the drops of piss, too.

Despair and disgust seized me. It was worse than the pain, even though it was
very bad, too. I cried out when I got on my fours. My knees were rubbed sore so
badly that they bleed. It seemed there was an open burning wound in lieu of my
asshole. I crawled to the bench lopsidedly and found my shirt in the grass under
it.

I had to switch my mind off from everything, I knew it. The only thing I had to
think about was to get out of there. I pulled the shirt on me and groped for my
pants in the darkness. At last I found them. I sprawled when I got up and tried
to put them on - but I made another attempt and succeeded. I trapped the pain in
the farthest corner of my mind - and shame, and disgust, too. All I have to do
is to get out of here, I repeated to myself again and again, until my mind got
void of any other thought. I checked the car keys - they were still in the
pocket, thanks God. The thought what I would do if they got lost showered me
with cold. I didn't find and didn't look for my undies, socks and shoes. I
walked back to the parking place like that, barefoot.

It was quiet and empty except for my car - and no wonder, it was half past two
already. I fell into the car, suppressing another fit of sickness. The key
didn't get into the lock.

"Stop it, stop it, Jesse," I whispered to myself in a dreadful hoarse voice.
"You can do it."

Of course, I did. I drove the car all the way to "Sunny II" with the speed I was
able to control. I had to hypnotize myself trying to forget about the smell - it
was awful in the car. I was half-way when the thought came to my mind that I
could go to Dennis instead of driving 50 miles home. But no, I couldn't. I
didn't forget about him. I couldn't lay it for myself that I would be able to
appear in front of him like that.

I didn't cry as long as I drove - I fought the tears because they would hinder
me to see the road. But there was nothing that could keep me when I drove into
the garage. I wailed aloud shamelessly, with spittle leaking out of my mouth and
snot out of my nose. I scrambled out of the car and tore off the wet dirty
clothes. I dropped it right there, on the floor. I was going to burn it. And I
knew I would have to burn the draperies in the car salon.

Naked, I walked to the bathroom hitting light switchers on my way. I couldn't
stand darkness any more. I realized how cold I was only when I got under the
shower and hot water flooded me.

Soil stuck to my body everywhere where it was wet, especially on the back of my
thighs - there was crusted sperm and blood that leaked out of me even some grass
blades glued there. I poured half of bottle of liquid soap on the sponge and
started rubbing myself. The foam was pink and grey falling from me.

I rubbed the sponge against my agonizing opening, trying to get off every bit of
their juices on me. There were more inside me, too, and when the thought struck
me, I drove the head of the shower right inside my rectum. The pain was
shattering. I fell on my knees and the water immediately leaked red but I fucked
myself with this shower washing them out of me. When I pulled it out, I threw
up. Which was good as well because I knew I would have to do it anyway; their
semen was in my stomach.

"Why did they do it?" I wailed aloud without asking anybody. Then another
thought struck me. What if one of them - or some - had some disease? Even not
AIDS - but syphilis or tripper? Of course, they all used me without condoms -
but who knows, maybe, they don't care if they could get infected. I'll have to
visit the doctor, I thought. And for some reason this thought seemed the worst
for me. It was unfair! Why?!

Ted. Why did they do it to Ted? That's what I used to ask, right? Suddenly the
thought about him overpowered me. I didn't sense his presence from the moment
when I fell into the door - but he had to be around - as he always was.

I understood all at once that I thought about him all the time. I didn't call
his name - but his image wandered somewhere in my mind. I didn't go to Dennis
not because I didn't want to see him - but because I wanted to see Ted - and
nobody but Ted.

"Ted, you know," I whispered barely audibly behind the rustle of the water.
"Ted, it was done to you, too. You know how I feel."

It was absurd, helpless words. How could I compare? He was murdered in the most
horrible way - and I... they didn't stub cigarettes on me, didn't torture me,
didn't even fist me. Not only that! He suffered without fault - and I answered
for what I did to Johnny. But I said it and I waited for his answer.

He answered me at once. I saw the mirrors getting dim but it was just a visual
effect. His answer was in what I felt - his accepting presence - around me,
inside me. As if he penetrated my soul and wiped pain and bitterness from there.
I felt his love. I understood it exactly - it was what he tried to tell me. That
he loved me and was with me. He caressed me while I sat crouched in the tub
under the flows of water - in the very tub where he died.

I couldn't see him - his body image - he was putting all his energy in
sensation, I understood. The mirrors were like black swirls when I got out of
the tub. His invisible hands supported me. He walked me to the bed and then I
saw how the spread on it was pulled off. For the first time I saw something like
that and I felt a fit of mad joy - how strong he was getting.

"Ted," I called his name. I wanted to give him as much strength as I could. What
happened to me this night suddenly stepped away, became unimportant. Ted made it
for me - and only Ted meant something for me now. "Ted, please be with me," I
asked lying down on the bed. "Please be me, Ted," I whispered.

He was all I needed. I opened up for him, meeting his fleshless hands sliding on
my body and then I saw his face, mist-like pale and translucent, above me. For
the first time I could feel and see him at once. His hair was like black shadow
- but his eyes - beautiful tragic eyes - were hot and present as a live being
has.

He closed his face to mine and for a moment I felt a kiss of his lips on my
swollen sore mouth. And then his eyes became mine and I became him - and as I
lay prone on the bed in "Sunny II" - I returned to the day in last April when
Ted met his death here.

I got to know everything. I went through everything - every hour of those
thirty-seven hours while they killed him. His pain was my pain, his horror
singed me. He led me through it all. But I was happier than he was - or more
unhappy. Because some tiny part of my mind knew all the time it was the past he
was showing to me, the things that were already gone. But at the same time it
made me agonize in the terrible pity towards him for what he had to go through.

I found out everything. I found out why they killed him. I couldn't believe it
but I knew it for sure, with the sublime knowledge that Ted gave me. He entered
the bar to get a alcohol-free drink at eleven o'clock in the morning and the TV
was on. Some program about Holocaust victims, children queuing to the
crematorium that was masked under shower-rooms, heaps of dead bodies in Warsaw
ghetto, naked Jewish women shot by the soldiers.

And there were Baxter's Boys, in their leather-spiky garments, sitting at the
empty table, laughing and jeering. Ted just glanced at them. He was an adult
man, he knew very well what the freaks like this were up to. He took his soda
and exchanged the looks with the barman. They both could dislike Baxter's Boys
as much as they wanted - but it was better for themselves to keep silent.

Then Gary Troppe - they called him Fatso for the folds of fat on the back of his
neck - said:

"Remember that Jewish chick we stuffed full last month? I bet she walked legs
wide for a week after that."

"You stuffed her?" Con Baxter asked melancholically. "What with? With your tiny
prick?"

"His peter is just big enough to stuff a lap-dog," Wayne commented. "Do you know
his mother's lap-dog? He used to fuck it."

Gary flushed.

"I'd rather fuck a bitch than a Jew bitch," he muttered.

At that moment Ted passed by them with his drink in the hand - and for some
reason Gary paid attention to him.

"And what do you think about fucking Jews?" he asked putting his leg on Ted's
way. "About fucking them - not fuckin' them!" he laughed happily with his pun.

"I am a Jew myself," Ted said quietly stepping over Gary's leg. Con and others
laughed with approval.

"Hey, we have a fuckin' Jew here!" Gary exclaimed raising his knee. Ted
stumbled. He lost his balance and nearly fell. It could be killingly funny he
fell - and he would stay alive if he did.

But he didn't. Instead of it his drink splashed out of the bottle - right behind
the back of Con's collar. Con wiggled. It was wet and at once got sticky. The
barman shot a broad smile - and Ted couldn't help smiling. But what was the
worst was that Gary and Reg and Wayne and Kevin laughed aloud. They laughed at
Con - at their leader - and at the next second Con's face became dark as
thunder.

"I am sorry," Ted said. He was sorry he had an idea of having this soda all in
all but he didn't have an idea how bad everything was. "Friend, I mean it. I am
sorry."

He put the half-empty bottle on the table and walked out trying not to hurry too
much.

What happened then he didn't know - but he did know it now - and because of it I
knew it, too.

The guys' laughter died away under Conrad's fierce stare. At once they felt
uneasy - how they dared to laugh at him?

"This stinky Jew," one of them said. "It was too much about him, Con. Really too
much."

Con looked at them with crazy expression and they felt like shriveling and
getting very tiny. That's why they supported Kevin who - instinctively - tried
to drive Con's anger from them to somebody else.

"These Jews deserved what Aryan guys were doing to them. They can't behave
themselves when they are let walk loose."

"Will anybody else add something?" Con asked in a chilly voice.

"Yep," Wayne said. "Let's teach him a lesson."

"Let's teach the fuckin' Jew a lesson!" Gary exclaimed - and they rose all
together.

The barman walked behind them when he noticed how they directed to their shabby
"Jeep Isuzu" so determinedly. But Ted was gone by then and the barman returned
to his place thinking everything was all right. Six months later, when Ted's
body was found, the barman was dying of lung cancer and couldn't care less about
the little commotion he witnessed once.

Ted drove his car the same road as I came today - as we both came every time
when went from the downtown. They saw the rear of his car as soon as they turned
around the corner. And they started the chase.

It was fun. The music howled through glass-less windows of the Jeep and
everybody clapped Wayne on his back pushing him speed up, drive faster. I knew
what Ted felt when he noticed them and realized they were after him. I could
scream in my mind - don't do it! Don't drive to your house! Go to police! They
would leave you as soon as they would understand it.

But the thought of police came to his mind only to be thrown away at once - the
same as it happened with me today when I drove home. He had this absurd notion
of home being his fortress. And he also hoped that Baxter's Boys would get bored
with chasing him.

It seemed to happen. But it was Con who restricted Wayne when he realized where
Ted was going. They dropped behind and Ted happily believed it - because it was
what he wanted to believe. He put the car to the garage and entered the cottage.

Was there a chance that he could call the police? Funny. No adult man would do
it. To complain about what? That bad boys - all of them had to use false ID's to
buy a drink - wanted to catch him? Con knew what he could count on. There was a
chance, however, that Ted could live with somebody else - but it seemed it
didn't even come to Con's mind - and he didn't need to worry about it.

Ted popped a can of Sprite for himself when he heard the door from the garage to
the house clapping. He didn't have time to make a step towards it - because his
visitors were already here.

And his hell started.

The cans of Sprite - it was Ted's favorite drink, he had a fair amount of them
in his fridge - they used to stuff them in his ass - after they tore his opening
so loose that it was not interesting for them to fuck it any more. They fucked
him both ends and two up to his ass at once. They used their fists to fuck him -
and every oblong object their eyes fell upon - candles, a candlestick, sprays,
bottles. In the end everything was so torn in his perineum that they couldn't
find anything appropriate, everything was falling out of the gaping wound.

Three of his ribs were broken during the first fifteen minutes when they beat
him and the pain of their sharp ends puncturing his lung was haunting me through
all the time. He suffered massive inner hemorrhage - and every time when they
started beating him again it got worse. He had his kidneys beaten off - enough
to make him invalid for all his life. On the second day his spleen was ruptured
and his belly started bloating with blood accumulating there. He would probably
die, anyway, even if they left him alone. They jumped on his belly, kicked him
with all their might. They smashed his balls with their boots, squeezed them
until they popped and became just mushy mass.

Every cigarette they smoked they stubbed on him - but cigarettes were not
enough. They burnt him with matches and lighters, cooked his hands on the stove.
Con tore out his nails with the pliers and dripped boiling water on the raw
flesh.

They were demented. None of them had ever done anything like that to a human
being before. There were cats on their account, dogs they knocked over on the
road or tortured to death in the basement - but never a human. But they were
very successful with their first attempt. They loved it. No one wanted to stop -
but everyone wanted to outdo others in the ideas and performance.

Ted tore his voice raw with screaming. In the beginning he tried to beg them -
tried to call for their reason - only no way. They didn't care for the noise he
made. There was nobody around, anyway, and the TV was on loud. And soon he could
only wheeze and cackle, anyway.

I had to go through Ted's agony when they crucified his cat. I got to know the
cat's name - Pete - and why he was called like that. Because of the cat in
Heinlein's novel, the one who looked for the door into summer, remember?

He strolled in the yard and returned home, opened the cat's flap by his head
when he got hungry. Why didn't he sense anything? Cats have the instinct. But it
didn't warn him. He didn't get scared when seeing a bunch of strangers inside.
He stopped, however, when he saw his master writhing in the pool of blood on the
floor. Ted was past crying by then - but when he saw Pete, he screamed:

"Get out! Get out of here!"

Do you know how stubborn the cats can be from time to time?

"What? What did they do?!" I knew I asked it. It was my mind crying with what
Ted was showing me. I couldn't believe it. But it was what they did. They gutted
the cat - and then Con gathered a handful of his slimy guts and shoved them into
Ted's mouth. They broke his jaw a while ago to get safe blow-jobs from him - so,
he couldn't prevent it. Con used the handle of his knife to push the gut tubes
down Ted's throat.

"Maybe, he'll get one cat's life like that," they joked.

For the night they tied him and when he tried to get free, they broke his arms
against the armchair elbow. It was a weird sound of dry branches cracking when
his bones were disjointed. After that he couldn't do anything at all.

They proceeded with him in the morning, amazed that he was still alive. He was
bleeding from all his openings, there was no uninjured inch on his body. He
already barely responded to pain - and I could see how displeased Con and his
buddies were with it.

"The Jew bitch is dead meat now," they said.

But I knew it still hurt when they kicked him or when they stubbed cigarettes on
him. They carved David's Stars on his body. Nobody knew about it - by the time
he was found, his skin was gone so much that it couldn't be seen.

And then - later at night - on the second night of his agony - Baxter's Boys got
too tired with everything. They lazily pushed the prone body on the floor with
their boots - as if not knowing what to do with it. Well, it hardly looked like
a human body by now, anyway.

"Who will finish him off?" at last Con asked. They didn't volunteer to do it.
The rage of destruction was drained out and they just wanted it to end.

Ted didn't sense it. He was just a piece of meat by then, half-mad with pain. He
didn't hope to stay alive; he didn't want to stay alive. He just wanted the pain
to end - it was the only thought he had left.

"Well," Con said coming up to him and stepping on his hand that was curled on
the floor. The heel of his boot smashed his already broken fingers once more and
it sent a wave of shudder through Ted's body. "Then let's draw it."

Gary, Wayne and others watched him when he took out five matches and cut one of
them short. But he didn't simply present them to his friends to draw. He turned
Ted on his back. By then they already cut off his balls. They tried to push the
bits of them in his mouth but he couldn't swallow. He started choking and they
dropped it. His cock, almost skinless and burnt black, was still attached,
however. Con stuck the matches into its head - Ted seemed not to feel it.

"You can draw," he said.

One after one his friends pulled out the matches. When seeing that he had a long
match, Gary even imitated disappointment. But they all pulled out long matches.
Con was the last.

"Well, fuckers," he said. "I knew I would have to do it."

He didn't draw his match - instead of it he pressed the blade of his knife to
Ted's cock and cut its head off cleanly. It was when Ted made his last cry.
After that he didn't make any more sounds.

"Fatso, fill the tub," Con ordered. "Wayne, you'll help me!"

They dragged Ted to the bathroom when the tub was almost half-full. Gary - an
idiot - filled it with hot water - for God's sake, as if he was going to take a
bath. They laughed over it while waiting and Ted lay at their feet in an untidy
heap. Blood leaked from his chopped cock.

Then at last Con raised him on his knees and stuck his head under the water.
Ted's eyes opened. They were swollen and covered with blood - but the water let
him see - and he looked at the dented enamel on the tub's bottom. The water
filled his ears and nose. At first he tried to drink it. But then the moment
came when he had to breathe it in...

The water was pink because the blood on his face melted. I had to guess it
before.

*  *  *

Thirty-seven hours later I came round in my bed in the bedroom of "Sunny II".
The sheets under me were foul. I knew I was doing it under myself - but there
was nothing I could do with it. I scrambled down on the floor. I felt so weak
that I thought I wouldn't be able to stand up. My mouth was sand-paper dry - I
had to be terribly dehydrated. Supporting myself against the walls, I got to the
kitchen and drank water right from the tap.

The afternoon sun was orange and mild on my naked body that was covered in scabs
and bruises - the ones I got on Sunday night. I forgot to feel them for almost
two days and now the sensations were back.

"It will pass."

Ted's voice sounded in my mind. I nodded. It didn't matter what I felt.

"And, Jesse," he said. "Don't worry. You don't have anything. Any sick thing
from them, I mean."

I believed him at once. Somehow he knew. I felt relieved. Nothing could mess
around then and hinder us.

I didn't turn back - I knew he was behind me. I raised my hand palm up and felt
him touching it. The feeling of being together flooded me.

"Eat something, Jesse," he said.

"Sure. Let's see what we have," I opened the fridge. "What do you think about
yogurt?"

"I am very fond of yogurt," Ted smiled.

"And tuna. No bread. Do you think we can deal with it?"

"You'll go to the supermarket tomorrow," he said. "Let's leave it like that
now."

I put a can and a pack on the table and sat down. I didn't see Ted - but I knew
where he was - on the other chair, in front of me. I poked a spoonful of cherry
yogurt to my mouth - and that was when tears burst out of my eyes.

Sweet and salt-bitter. Every time when I eat yogurt since then I feel this taste
again.

"Why? Why did it have to happen like that?" I asked.

"Oh Jesse," I heard Ted's voice. Somehow I knew he stood up and walked to me -
and then I felt - I almost saw him kneeling in front of me - I felt his body at
my bare legs. His palms lay on my thighs and then I felt his cheek pressing to
my lap. It was not the same as if a man of flesh and blood would do it - but I
still recognized it unmistakably. He rubbed his face against my knees.

"I am sorry..." I whispered. "I am so sorry, Ted!"

"It's okay," he breathed out in my knees and I felt it - light and chilly. "You
are here. I am here. We will be together. It's okay."

He lied. Then I didn't know it. His hands continued to embrace me, pressing us
together - airy and tight at once - and then I felt him moving - and his lips -
I knew it was his lips, warmer than anything else of him and softer, too -
touched my pubic hair. He kissed me there. I made a deep breath. I raised my
hands. I wanted to touch him - but I was afraid I would touch nothing. So, I
just sat and waited. He kissed my member softly and his palm circled around my
bruised balls. He didn't want to arouse me - he didn't try. He just caressed me
- and I closed my eyes. I felt bitterly happy. Being in the arms of the man I
loved, feeling his fleshless touches, whispering his name.

"Ted. I love you, Ted."

When we returned to the living room, I noticed the red light flashing on my
answering machine and hit the button. It was Dennis. Nine messages. The tape was
over or he would leave more, I suppose.

"Hi, it's me. I hope you are okay. Call me back when you can."

I dialed his number and heard his relieved voice:

"I called you I don't know how many times! I didn't know - what if you didn't
like something on Sunday..."

"Of course, I loved everything," I interrupted him. "Just 24-hour bug. I got
down from my feet next morning after I came from you. The temperature was
jumping up and down - and this awful headache... By the way, you didn't get it?"

"No..." Dennis started.

"As soon as it passed, I fell asleep and was up only half an hour ago," I added
cheerfully. "Sorry for worrying you."

"I will come," he said firmly.

"No!" this was sincere and I think he felt it. "You have to work, after all, if
you want to eat."

"But you..." he started.

"No, don't come. Come..."

"On Sunday, as we agreed?" he asked.

"Yes, on Sunday."

It seemed to me there was the whole eternity till Sunday - and I was going to
spend it with Ted.

The few next days were like in the mist for me. We didn't part with Ted even for
a moment - except once, when I had to go out to buy something to eat for myself.
It was a kind of impossible unity - the one that anybody hardly can know with
another man. We could spoke without speaking - and every second when I wanted
it, I could feel the subtle elusive touches of his hands and lips on my face and
body.

It was Thursday, I suppose, yes, the evening of Thursday when I lay flat on the
bed and Ted was fondling to me. For a moment his unforgettable radiant eyes
looked at me out of nothing before he became invisible and I could feel his soft
lips sliding over my jaw.

"Yes, kiss me," I asked softly.

"Don't fall asleep," he chuckled. But his touches were dreamy, too. I felt his
hands getting under me - as if he wanted to raise me - and his mouth was locked
with mine. It seemed I could breathe his breath. I licked looking for his tongue
- and it was here, like a little draft - touching me in short flickering waves
of the air. His palms lulled me while he covered my face with kisses. I could
hear him whispering my name. I didn't know anything better than these moments. I
wanted them to go on forever.

And then, in the same light soft voice, he said:

"I want you to do something for me, Jesse."

"There is nothing I won't do for you," I answered. I felt his face against mine,
pressing almost playfully as his hands continued to caress me.

"I want you to bring Con Baxter here," he said.

I am not sure if there was another thing I expected to hear less. I opened my
eyes. Ted put his fingers on my temples and massaged them - but I stopped
relishing it.

"Why?" I whispered.

"You promised me. Or was it just words?" he didn't stop caressing me. "Never
mind, I will understand. One can say anything while..."

"It was not just words," I shook my head and sat on the bed. "I mean it. I love
you, Ted. I will do everything for you - everything I can. I just want to know -
why do you need him?"

He touched me again and I wrapped my hands around myself to stop it. When he
spoke, his voice sounded helpless - like a little lost boy's voice.

"I don't know," he said confused. "I don't know myself. I just feel I need it.
It will change a lot. Please, Jesse!"

"You don't have to implore me," I felt something was breaking in me and I bit my
lips with the pain of it. "I'll do it. Oh Ted! I don't want to do it - but I
will. Anything you want from me."

"It won't be bad," he said and reached his hands to me. Even though I pressed my
palms to my face I couldn't escape his touching. He dealt with it the same
easily as he dealt with my clothes. I felt him getting under my hands and
patting my face again. "It will be good. I just know it."

"Good for whom?"

"For me. For you," his voice sounded in my mind. "Don't reject it!" he pushed my
hands away and I felt he had my face in his palms now. "I know, Jesse. You know
I know it. We just have to do it."

"Do you want me to bring him here so that you could kill him?" I asked.

"How will I kill him?" he chuckled a little. "Con is a strong man. And I... I am
nothing. He made me nothing. Please bring him. Something will be. Please do."

"But how?"

He told me how. He made me lay down on the bed again - and he showed me - that
is, somehow he was in my mind and made me see. And again I could do nothing -
just watch - the same as some days ago when he showed me his agony. He was over
me - he was inside me - we were one.

And when he stopped training me, he didn't leave me, too. He leant over me and
caressed me - but it was only physical because there was agony in my mind. He
showed me his own agony when he was in the cold and darkness, its fear and
misery and endless loneliness that was swallowing him. Pete was still there now.
And Ted wanted to get him out. And he didn't want to slip back to the cold. He
asked me to help him. But I already agreed, how couldn't he understand it.

"I am so sorry I can't go with you," he said to me when next evening I was going
for Con Baxter.

I nodded. I drove my car as a sleep-walker. I could hear the radio pouring out
the music but I couldn't say what kind of music it was. I followed the road
rules meticulously but if I had to, I wouldn't recall anything from my way to
the city. I parked the car at the disco-bar with the flickering neon sign - I
knew I had to come there but I couldn't even read the name of it - and walked
inside.

It was hot and noisy and crowded - and for a moment I wondered dully how I would
find Con Baxter there - even though his face stood in front of my eyes. But then
I moved forward - nothing hindered me - and I saw him sitting at the table.

It was the strangest feeling - I don't know what to compare it to - when in
reality I looked at the man that I imagined for so many times. I felt my throat
was closed as if I was choking. It was Con. Everything was as Ted told me.

He was alone and a couple of empty glasses stood on the table in front of him.
He didn't drink at that moment - but I knew he drank before and was eager to
drink more. Only he was broke, that's the thing. That's why his eyes wandered -
he hoped to see any of his friends, even though he quarreled with them for some
unimportant reason and told them not to get before his eyes. Or to see anybody
he knew - who could put a glass for him.

He was younger than me - but he didn't look like that at all - tall and strong,
with board shoulders and muscles bulging on his arms. I could see it because he
kept his leather shabby jacket on the table under his elbow. And I could see one
more thing that didn't strike me when I saw him in my dreams and visions. He was
beautiful. Con Baxter was beautiful.

It was crude beauty, of course, beast-like - with his steel muscles and the
expression of a raging bull in his huge dark eyes. But his features were
chiseled cleanly - square jaw, narrow nose and long eyebrow arches. And this
hair. Oh this hair! I felt my mouth gaping when I looked at the long swirling
strands of his black hair falling wildly over his shoulders.

His hands lay on the table leisurely - but I felt shivering when I looked at
them. I remembered these hands pushing my head under the water.

I looked at him. People went around me without touching me - and I looked and
couldn't make a step towards him. Fear gripped me - that he would see me
watching and I would spoil everything - but I couldn't make myself move. Ted's
strength that he managed to pour out into me was gone somewhere.

"Con," I whispered. In the noise of the music he couldn't hear me, of course. He
continued to look around with his brooding stare - not stopping at me. I raised
my palms to my face, shielding myself from everything for a moment - and I
called another name - Ted's name.

"You know you promise, Jesse," I said to myself. I knew I would do it.

I don't remember how I got to the bar-stand and asked for a couple of "Red
Label". I walked back with the glasses in my hands and I was ready to see that
Con was gone - or that there was somebody sharing his table with him. I didn't
know what I would feel then - joy or disappointment - maybe, nothing. My
feelings were under press; I didn't have to feel much until I would finish my
assignment.

Well, Con was there. I came up to the table and put the glasses on it. He looked
at the drinks first - and only then at me. I sat down and smiled and pushed one
of the portions to him.

"Who are you?"

"Jesse," I said. "And you are Con. Wayne introduced us - remember?"

He didn't nod. He took whiskey and downed it as I continued to sit and twist the
glass in my fingers. I thought I could drink now - but I didn't have to. After
all, I had to drive - at least for that.

"Had a difficult day?" I asked. There was a pause before he reacted. He looked
at me and I felt I was collapsing under the heaviness of his gaze.

"What?" he said expressionlessly.

"A bad day, huh?" I repeated outvoiceing the noise. He muttered something. I
pushed my drink to him. He took it and drank it.

Later I often thought how it could be that everything went so smoothly for me.
Con Baxter was not the kind of guy who used to get drunk with strangers alone in
the bar. But that day he made everything as if he was supposed to slip into the
trap I prepared for him. I took two other portions of whiskey - and then two
more - and he drank both. I told him something - I didn't remember what exactly
- and I was sure he didn't listen to me. He took what I gave him as if it was
the most natural thing - and he hardly favored me a glance - but it was okay for
me - I didn't want him to look at me, not after he had done it once and I nearly
was broken under it.

Then I looked at the flock of empty glasses in front of us and said:

"I have a bottle of "Ballantine's" at home - what do you think about it, Con? I
mean it looks like too expensive to take these tiny doses here."

He raised his blood-shot eyes at me and I stood it. A contemptuous smile curved
his lips - as if I begged him for something, not offered him. But, in fact, it
was true.

"Only it is a long way from here," I added hastily - but somehow I knew it would
make him agree rather than change his mind.

"Where?" he said one word through his clenched teeth.

"Fifty miles," I answered. "I own a cottage. A quiet place."

"Ballantine's", he repeated - and then he got up without adding anything.

I knew it was his answer. I followed him to the exit, feeling how my heart
trembled madly even through the artificial tranquility that Ted gave me.

Con looked at me only when we were outside.

"Where is your car?"

He was drunk. He put his feet on the ground firmly but his torso swayed and it
made his snake-like locks float in the air. I opened the door of my car for him
and he flopped inside. I stood under the dark sky for several seconds, clenching
my fists. I managed to do it. For you, Ted.

Con jerked with the music during all the road, in wild messy motions. I looked
at him with a corner of my eye wondering in a distant way how even in such drunk
state his face stayed so clear and handsome. Why was he given it? The shattering
contrast between his looks and his soul. He paid attention to me only twice,
once when asking for a cigarette - I didn't smoke but I had a pack - I supposed
he could want it - and the other one - when he suddenly looked straight at me,
trying to appear sober, and said:

"You are taking me to your place so that I can fuck you, you faggot?" my
nostrils flared but I kept silent. "Never mind," he laughed slapping me on my
shoulder. "Two hundred bucks and I'll screw your ass inside out - mommy don't
cry!"

I bit my lip to remain silent. So, irreconcilable Con Baxter - hard-boiled Con
Baxter - didn't see anything bad in earning money with hustling? I turned to him
slightly and smiled letting him think whatever he wanted.

I drove to "Sunny II" and put the car in the garage. Con appeared
half-responsive to real life and only when I switched off the radio, he asked:

"Here? Already?"

I didn't know if he would recognize the place should he had been brought there
by day and in a normal state. He seemed pretty unaware now. He scrambled out of
the car and tried to light another cigarette for himself. His movements were so
messy that he nearly set on fire a strand of his hair. I felt a kind of shame at
that moment. I made him drunk almost to the point of fainting - and now he was
trapped and suspected nothing about it.

A cat and a mouse. This thought flashed through my mind - but I didn't know who
was the cat and who was the mouse, really. We entered the room. I didn't sense
Ted. Perhaps he was hiding from Con - was there a tiny chance that this bastard
could perceive him? Or he was preparing - I didn't know what for.

"Well, where is your "Ballantine's"?" Con asked without smiling, shooting a
glance at me. It was probably the only thing he remembered. I nodded.

"Here you are," I opened the bar and took out the sealed bottle. "Exactly for
you."

It was the truth. But he didn't know it and, anyway, he got too busy opening it.
I put two glasses - as if I was going to accompany him.

"Ice?"

"I'll use ice only to push it up to your ass, shitty queer," he blurred. He
downed the glass and only then sat down on the sofa. He didn't ask me why I
didn't drink. "A nice place you have," he looked around.

Doesn't he recognize, resounded in me. He looked around once more as if
something disturbed him and my heart faltered.

"I am sorry," I squeezed out, "one moment."

I walked to the bathroom almost running.

"Yeah, go to shit!" he jeered and I felt easier. He didn't suspect anything.

In fact, I think it was the moment when he started suspecting. He recalled there
was a bathroom even though he didn't see it. It was the first step. Perhaps it
didn't work so clearly in his mind - but it did happen. He was scum, Con Baxter,
but not an idiot.

"Ted," I opened the water and whispered under its noise looking at the mirror.
"Ted, please!"

I didn't know what I asked for. Misery and fear covered me. Maybe, I just hoped
to see how the mirrors would dim for me and get strong again.

And it was when I heard how a howl rose in the living room. It was such an
animal-like hoarse evil sound that my hair raised on the tips. I needed a couple
of seconds to realize it was Con's voice.

I froze. At first the only thought came to my mind - that it was Ted appeared in
front of him. But then I heard Con screaming:

"You bitch! Where have you brought me to?!" and the sound of shattering glass.

He was at the bathroom door faster than a lightning - and he was so strong that
when he drove his shoulder in it, the hook flopped out as if it was on glue.

The opening door threw me on the sink - and I looked frozen at Con Baxter who
appeared in the door. He was in fury. No, it is not enough to say it. I have
never seen such raving anger before. His hair float like snakes around his dark
face - like snakes on the head of Gorgon - and his eyes - they were almost white
with hatred.

"You dead man, where did you drag me to?" he hissed out.

He had a half of broken bottle in his hand. That was what smashed. The "rosette"
of it pointed straight at me.

"Playing with me? You think you can cheat me? I finished off one fucker right
here and you'll..."

He moved on me on the half-phrase. I rushed aside escaping the splinters of the
bottle. But I didn't escape his other hand. It had to be the same easy for him
to cope with me as to catch a cat. He grabbed my neck and threw me face on the
wall. With a soft juicy sound blood spattered out of my nose, leaving the long
streak on the tile. I stumbled. I expected the rosette driven into my kidney; I
tried to turn around to face Con and knew I wouldn't be able to do it. But he
was in the mood to play, I suppose. His heavy fist drove in my temple and
everything in front of my eyes went black like under dark wave.

"Here is goes, fucker," Con's voice brought me back. I had slid down and now he
pulled me by my shirt. I heard the material ripping. "Hey!" he laughed - I knew
what he saw - my scars, of course. "Looks like somebody already worked on you.
Never mind, now I'll carve your face even better!"

His fingers dug in my throat as he pressed me to the wall - and even though
everything was switching off in front of my eyes because of hypoxia I still
could see the rosette closing on my face.

"Mommy don't cry!" he yelled out - and it was the last words I heard from Con
Baxter.

His hand with the bottle aiming to my face froze in the air suddenly. But it was
not because he changed his mind. I could see it. He stopped because some other
hand gripped on his wrist and held him. An invisible hand. I saw Con jerking. He
didn't understand. The expression of puzzlement appeared on his face for a
moment. He even looked at his wrist - and could see nothing. And then I saw how
Ted started bending his hand backwards.

Con's muscles swelled with tension - and even though he had another enemy now,
his other hand continued to crush my windpipe with the same frenzy. Red and
black stains floated in the air in front of my eyes as I tried to get a gulp of
oxygen. Ted pushed the bottle away from me farther and farther - but Con didn't
let me go, he just didn't.

Then the mirror behind him burst in splinters. The noise made him falter - but
not enough. It was the splinters raising in the air and sticking into his back
and neck that made him yowl like a beast. And only then he let me slide out.

I flopped on the floor catching for the air and awful pain burned in my throat.
I saw how Con turned around on the place, yelling and tearing the splinters from
his skin. Trickles of blood leaked on him everywhere. His blood-shot eyes looked
around but he didn't see anybody. Then Ted hit him in the stomach. It was
horrible. The force was so great that it raised Con's body in the air and threw
him against the tub. I bet this blow would kill anybody else - but not him. He
growled shaking his head as if in disbelief and started rising on his feet
again.

Ted struck his face now - I saw Con's head jerking - and then another blow threw
him into the tub. He tried to get up again - and ran against an invisible wall.
Ted kept him prone in the tub - as much as there was place for Con - and he
struggled and flailed madly trying to get out.

I shivered sitting on the floor and looking at it. I didn't know if Con knew
what happened to him. He just knew that he was overwhelmed with something that
he couldn't see - something hostile to him. He tried to fight it and failed. And
he was afraid.

He still bucked but Ted kept him firmly on the place. He won. I sighed with
relief. And at the next moment I suddenly understood that everything only
started.

It was like a transparent shadow freaking from the air on Con, on his face,
filling his nostrils, mouth and eye-sockets. Con screamed. That is, he tried to
scream. He was probably hurt agonizingly. But the shadow was drowning the
sounds.

I watched how it penetrated him. And suddenly his face distorted. Not its
features - but something inside it - bones and flesh. It kind of bloated from
inside as if it was going to burst. His mouth got ajar again - but now it seemed
to me he didn't only try to scream. He tried to push out what invaded him. In
vain. His eyes bulged horribly. I could hardly stand looking at it. I moaned in
fear.

And then I heard Ted - as if my sound reminded him about me. His voice sounded
clearly and loudly inside my head - but I barely recognized it. It was not my
Ted's soft voice. It resounded with force and anger. Not anger against me - but
it touched me, too.

"Get out of here! There is nothing for you to look at!"

He stopped abruptly. As if he couldn't afford to waste even a bit of his energy
on me. I rushed out of the bathroom and the door shut behind me with a huge
clap. I didn't try to push it - and I was sure I wouldn't be able to open it
even though there was no hook on it any more.

I got to the living room and curled in the armchair. The breath was getting less
painful for me. I found a handkerchief and wiped the blood from my nose. There
was noise behind the door - I can't even describe it. At first I shivered but
then tremendous tiredness overwhelmed me. There was nothing I could do about it.
I just sat and waited.

It went on for three quarters an hour. I knew it - I could see the clock. In the
end the light faltered and for some moments the cottage was drowned in the
darkness. Then it lit up again and I heard nothing but silence. I gritted my
teeth. It was even more dreadful than the noise. The silence so absolute that I
could hear how the water was running from the tap. I never turned it off. Then I
heard somebody moving. A horror gripped my throat. Some awful thought
overwhelmed me - I imagined that I would see a horrible creature now, emerging
out of the bathroom, something from Stephen King's books, some Outside One.

But the door opened and there was Con standing on the threshold. Con? Only for a
second I thought so. Then I realized absolutely clearly that it was Ted. I can't
say how I understood it. His dark handsome face was unchanged and his long hair
still hung loosely around his face - dripping water for some reason - but his
eyes were the eyes of Ted. Soft mournful Semitic eyes.

And of course I could feel him. I would recognize him in every body!

He obsessed Con. I realized it only after the very clear thought about bodies
visited to my mind. He lived in his body now, made it walk, its chest rise, its
lips smile. What did he do with Con? Turn him away and made him take his place
wandering around earthbound? I didn't have the answers then. And I didn't have
time to wonder.

Because Con's lips moved apart in an easy generous smile - a shy smile, friendly
and affectionate, the one Con never had - and Ted's voice said:

"Come here, Jesse. What's wrong with you?"

And with the sound of this voice I felt how every bit of fear was washed out of
my soul. I stood up; I felt faint - a bloody handkerchief fell out of my hand -
and as Ted made a step towards me I stepped towards him, too.

"Oh dear," he said under his breath, "we waited for it for so long."

His warm strong palms lay on my cheeks.

He raised me on tiptoes to reach to my mouth; I felt his breath - clear breath
of Ted, not nicotine and whiskey of Con. His lips were soft and warm and
resilient. He licked a puffy split on my lower lip - so lightly that the pain
was exciting.

And suddenly it reached me. Ted was with me! In flesh and blood. I could feel
him, could touch him, could sense him all at once. How much I wanted it!

I gasped. He didn't let my lips go, the kiss was deep and strong and I braced my
arms around him reveling in the strength of his shoulders, in the warmth of his
arms, in firmness of his rib-cage pressed to mine.

"You are here," I whispered into the kiss. "You are back."

It was a miracle. Con's exquisite strong body - the body of a beautiful beast -
was filled with Ted's sweet caring spirit. I melted in his hands, yielding to
his strength - and I felt loved and protected by him.

My bottom belly was pressed to his - and I could feel his hard member there,
under Con's leather pants, the same stiff and throbbing as my own cock was - and
then, in the next second, Ted pushed his palm to my crotch and squeezed it
lightly, as if checking it weight. I caught the air. It sent a pang of arousal
through me - so wild that it couldn't be compared with anything I felt before.
It seemed my cock burst out with blood overfilling it. I clamped my thighs
trying to get more feeling from his hand there.

"Yep, dear," Ted said parting from my mouth, "now we'll have it all."

We walked to the bedroom having each other in our arms - and there we pulled the
clothes off hastily. I whimpered slightly in impatience - and there were the
words leaking from Ted's lips:

"Yes, Jesse, yes, right now."

His body was smooth and golden, with big brown nipples standing very erect - and
I really moaned when he pulled down his pants. I saw the tower of his long
massive cock raising from the dark bush of his pubic hair - and two huge dark
shapes of his balls under it. I started sliding down on my knees to worship it
but he didn't let me. He took me around my ribcage and laid down on the bed. His
mouth greedily leant to my throat - kissing and nibbling it - it still hurt
after Con's hand but at the same time his touches turned me on - even more if it
could be possible.

I felt his teeth under his lips; he lowered down to my chest, clamping his mouth
on my nipple. Now and then I felt the push of the round head of his huge cock
against my thigh. It was wet with precum seeping out of it. My own cock was dry
- I was so aroused that it seemed to burn out any juice in it. Ted's palms slid
over my belly, smooth on my rough scars - but I was not ashamed in front of him.
He saw me naked so many times while he was a ghost and stroked me so many times
then. There was nothing in my body he didn't know and nothing that didn't belong
to him.

But it was for the first time when he really could explore me. He clung to me,
kissing my belly, taking bits of skin in his mouth and sucking them. I was like
mad - he filled me with bliss. His breath was hot and cold on my pubic hair -
and then he enveloped his lips around my cock. I whined. The sensation was so
strong. Ted's loose locks brushed my thighs. I stuck my fingers into his
beautiful hair and pressed his head closer to my member. He let it in - so
easily and completely. I raised my hips involuntarily asking for more sensation,
wanting to be deeper in him. His mouth touched the base of my cock. It went
smoothly into his throat, then out again. I moaned in frenzy. I was dissolving
in pleasure. I pulled his head up and down with this gorgeous hair - and he
obeyed my guidelines perfectly. His gullet was velvety and hot and I felt I was
losing the earth with these smooth strokes.

I nearly convulsed when cumming. The pain shot through my balls and it seemed
the sperm that was spurting out of them was thick and boiling. I ejaculated for
awfully long, for minutes, it seemed to me. It was my first orgasm for the last
months.

Ted let me rest cuddling me in his arms for several minutes. I wanted to get
down to his cock but he didn't let me. He made me lie and his lips slid over my
closed eyelids while I continued to feel his urgent erection butting against me.

At last he whispered:

"Come on, Jesse..."

I could answer him only with a happy drunk smile. Come on, Ted. I will be always
ready for you.

But it was not blow-job he meant. He held me prone and I felt his fingers
crawling to my perineum and finding my opening. It still hurt after Jimmy and
his friends but I was sure Ted wouldn't ever hurt me. He didn't. He wetted his
fingers with spit so abundantly that they slid inside almost imperceptibly. He
slid two of them in and out, turning them slightly, widening it for himself. I
loved it. Pleasure was like a warm surf rising in me. His long strong fingers
played with my anus, distended it, spreading wetness on it.

Then he pushed them even deeper and found my prostate. It was another sensation.
I inhaled sharply. I was oversensitive to everything he was doing - and now it
was like he sent the needle from there right through my cock - but it was not
pain, it was delight.

"You will love it, dear," he muttered licking my nipple as his fingers played
sending me to heaven with pleasure. I was close to shooting again when he pulled
them out. His eyes were laughing and enigmatic when he spat on his palm and
rubbed it over the head of his cock. I waited for him to say how he wanted to do
it. He wrapped his arm around my waist and turned me face down. I rose on my
knees and elbows and put my forehead on my hands. For some reason this
animal-like submissive pose aroused me even more. My cock was trembling in
anticipation. I could feel Ted setting behind me. He was still moistening his
cock and I almost wailed in impatience. I heard him chuckling softly - and then
the head of his cock pushed into me.

I grunted. It was very wide. The way how it distended me was frightening. But
there was no pain. No bitter pain, at least, the pain I felt was more like
excessive pleasure. I didn't feel the splits on my anus ripping. He penetrated
me smoothly and neatly, in long forward and backward movements - until I felt
his hot belly against my ass and his hairy heavy balls against my own scrotum.

"Yes, Jesse, yes, that's it," he sighed out starting thrusting.

It was eternity of bliss. His strokes, as he sent his gorgeous cock inside my
body, conveyed the waves of pleasure through me as if out bodies were linked in
sensations. The fire of pleasure rose and rose. There were moments when I felt I
couldn't stand it any more, there couldn't be such delight - and then Ted slowed
down a bit to let it ebb - and then we got up again. I don't remember what I was
saying. Words were fleeting from my lips, pitiful and blissful. I pleaded him to
have mercy on me - and pleaded him not to stop. My breath was like sobbing and I
caught it with open mouth. At last he speeded up once more - in such frenzy that
he moved me forward with every thrust. His ball-sac slapped against mine loudly
and his cock flew inside my rectum wet and slippery.

I cried out when cumming - and at the next moment he froze - only his cock still
pulsed inside me - and I felt his sperm shooting - icy and boiling, filling me
full.

We cummed twice more this night. Between it we lay together, cuddling and
kissing, exploring the bodies of each other with our mouths and fingers. We
barely spoke - it seemed unnecessary. We felt each other so well - and, in any
case, there were years for speaking in front of us.

* * *

It was nearly down when Ted at last switched off the light. In the dim room he
leant to me and kissed one of my eyes and then the other one closing them.

"My Jesse," he whispered and I floated to sleep in the strong warm embrace of
his arms.

A bad dream came to me. I thought they wouldn't come any more - not when Ted was
with me now! But it did. I saw Ted in it - in his real body, not in Con's
gorgeous shape. His face was pale and weary as if he was exhausted - and there
were bitter wrinkles around his lips. He looked at me with a tired distant gaze
- like an adult at a boy - and that's was how I felt - small and blundering.

I didn't know why I couldn't come up to him - but I even didn't try. I watched
him as he looked at me - and then his lips moved and he said one phrase:

"I can't call you my beloved."

He said it - and even though it seemed mysterious to me, sorrow suddenly rose in
me like a storm wave, sweeping me, emptying my heart. I wanted to cry but I
couldn't. There was just sucking emptiness inside me, an aching hole of grief. I
stopped seeing Ted but the feeling stayed. I floated in it for eternity.

But even then I didn't wake up. I woke up in the late morning, when the sun
passed the bedroom mostly and its rays were not fierce any more. I lay in the
bed alone. At first I tried to tell myself that he could be in the kitchen,
making coffee for us - or in the living room, in the armchair - as I used to see
him when he was a ghost.

He was not there. I knew it - I got up and looked for him, of course - only I
knew it was futile. He didn't meet me in another room. He didn't go for a walk
or to the bakery to buy hot croissants for our breakfast. Con's crude leather
garment was gone. The splinters of glass were thrown neatly to the trashcan. And
"Sunny II" was empty.

I sat at the kitchen table, put my face in my hands and cried.

I lost Ted. I thought I found him last night and we would never part now. He was
in flesh and he was with me. Only in flesh he turned out to be a ghost even
more. I will never see him again, I thought, will never touch him, never hear
his voice. He was gone forever. He left me.

I felt choking with tears. Why did he have to do it? Why couldn't he stay?
Yesterday I was sure he wanted to stay - but I was wrong, of course. He never
wanted it.

He never wanted me, maybe. All he needed was my help to bring him to the world -
and he was quite skillful in driving me to do it. He used me while he had to -
and now there was nothing more I could do for him. "I can't call you my
beloved." I bit my lips with bitterness. How could he do it to me?

And at the same time a voice inside me repeated - it was right, it was fair. I
used to think that we were supposed to meet - and it was true. But why did I
think that we were supposed to meet to be happy? How could I hope to be happy
after what I had done? There are things that had to be paid, sooner or later.
Didn't I bring enough grief in the world?

I don't know what made me more miserable - the thought of being left or this
realization. My heart was breaking because I missed Ted so much! I missed his
touches already, him speaking to me, his kindness. I needed him - "here, around"
- as he used to tell me. And what would be with me when he didn't get back today
and tomorrow - for all days of my life? I just couldn't live these days without
him.

My tears ran dry after a while and I just sat with my face buried in my palms
while my mind wandered over the things that made me miserable and made me
scared. Because I was scared, too. Yesterday, when Ted appeared in front of me,
he deleted the memories of the mortal combat in the bathroom - when he won
Conrad Baxter and obsessed him. Was it now Con's spirit, earthbound by anger and
fear, drifting around in "Sunny II"? Or did Ted send him to hell?

And what did Ted want? He never told me. To live another life in the body of his
murderer, maybe? To use Con's health and strength and beauty to enjoy everything
he was robbed of?

My mind was in agony with all the thoughts that crowded it. But after several
hours the intensity of my feelings went down. I felt so drained out that I was
about to fall. I sat for a while with wide-opened eyes listening to the silence
in the cottage. It seemed even more overwhelming to me because I knew there
wouldn't be any more strange sounds here, any voice calling me from nowhere.

Then I stood up and brought myself in order as much as it was possible. I walked
to the bedroom and pulled the sheets away from the bed. I was afraid to breathe
in because I knew I would feel the smell - Con's smell and smell of our
love-making - and then I wouldn't know what would happen to me - I couldn't cry
any more.

Having dealt with it I went to the living room again and turned TV on. I was not
sure why I did it - I just knew it was right - with some after-effect of the
knowledge Ted gave me. I sat in front of the screen and looked at it until it
became dark behind the windows.

The 9-o'clock news let me know what the plan of Ted was, after all.

The street in the downtown was bulked with police cars and there were yellow
bands outlining a square place around the doorway of one of the houses. I saw
clear chalk contours on the bright wet asphalt - four contours - as the
announcer spoke excitedly:

"One more shocking crime in out city. A 19-year-old without any reason opened
gun-fire from an automatic gun at his friends. All victims were dead by the
moment when the police arrived. The killer didn't resist the arrest. He dropped
the gun on the ground and said: "I did it. They were fuckers - mommy don't cry!"

There was more what they spoke about - about violence in the streets and
availability of weapons, about the groups of young men and that the killer was
the leader of one of them - he executed his buddies coldly and openly right in
the street. That he was considered a violent young man but he was never called
to account for anything. A sequence flickered - the policemen dragging the man
to the car. His face was lowered but I could see his flying snake-like strands
of black hair.

I didn't make a sound when seeing it. I was not shocked. I understood it. That
was what Ted wanted to do. To overpower Con and to use his body to kill Baxter's
Boys. He didn't drive Con out. He won him and captured him, trapped in the tiny
cage somewhere in his mind. He made Con get the gun - Ted couldn't know where to
get it, Con could. And Ted had to use his knowledge the same as he used the
body.

And whatever Ted did - Con presented there, too, aware of everything, able to do
nothing. He had to try to escape, try to fight - but it was useless. He was
there when Ted took the gun in his - Con's - hands and shot and shot at his -
Con's - friends. He was there when the police seized him and when Ted signed the
death sentence for him confessing that he had done it.

Did Con think about what I thought? That these things were not the worst. That
the worst was to come when Ted decided at last to leave him. Would it be on the
trial? Or when Con would be moved to the death cell? Whenever it would be - I
was sure Ted wouldn't leave him a way out - and Con would have to drink all
misery and fear that could be measured for a man.

I sat at the TV looking blankly at the screen for hours. I didn't know what to
do and I didn't know what really I wanted to do. At last I stood up and walked
to the bathroom. There was an untidy square of stone wall on the place where one
of the mirrors had been. The other one was still there, just with a few long
splits crossed it. I looked at the tub but I was not afraid I would see Con
Baxter lying there. I knew I wouldn't. Neither Con nor Ted would come to me any
more.

I opened the drawer and pulled a pack of blades out of it. It had to be so
dizzyingly easy - I almost could feel how it would be. In hot water the pain of
the blade across my wrist wouldn't feel at all. And I could close my eyes to see
nothing.

At that moment a sudden sharp pain pierced me all through - as if a hot rod went
along my spine and was pushed into every my limb. I fell on the floor with my
arms and legs wringing in the spasm. My fingers became claws losing the blades.
I lay on the floor curled and unable to move while the pain was coursing through
me, leaving me numb and motionless.

Perhaps I just had a cramp because during so many hours I didn't move. I sat
like frozen at the TV - then I walked without thinking about it at all - and
that's when it struck me. I lay on the floor for hours until the numbness was
gone little by little. Then I gathered my members as much as I could, got to the
bed and switched off completely and at once.

I nearly jumped up when the sound of approaching car woke me next morning. For a
moment I sat staring in front of myself and my mind threw away everything what
was dispensable - until it found the answer. It was Sunday. My God. Of course.
It was Dennis - just as he promised. The car's engine shut down and I heard his
hasty steps on the stairs. I got up and walked to the door. Dennis's cheerful
voice hurried me up:

"Hey, still sleeping? And I brought something tasty for us."

I opened the door and Dennis with his hands full of the parcels fell inside the
cottage. For a moment he stopped staring at me with huge eyes - and then I made
a step to him and put my arms around him.

"Throw them," I whispered shaking the parcels out of his hands and burying my
face against his neck.

"Jesse," his voice was startled. "Are you all right?"

"Don't ask me questions, just don't ask," I breathed out kissing him. I couldn't
press him tighter but I tried - and I wiggled my bottom belly squashing it
against his.

"Oh..." he started something and then he just resigned. His hands lay on my
shoulders - very lightly for the first moment - and then he jammed me against
himself, digging his fingers so deeply in my flesh as if he wanted to merge with
me.

It happened between us right on the floor in the hall, stunningly quickly, and
only after that we walked to the living room and snuggled together on the sofa.
Dennis's long narrow palm was smoothing my hair as I lay with my arms wrapped
around him - I didn't want to let him go, not for a moment.

"Jesse," he whispered and I hardly could hear him but I knew what he said. "You
are with me - at last."

* * *

I was wrong when I thought that Ted would never come to me again. It happened a
year and a half later, one night in the end of December. I returned home from
the Christmas party we had at the office. Yes, I worked again. Dennis
recommended me to the company they were partners with and I suppose my employees
were contented with me. It was not really convenient to drive for the whole hour
to the city in the morning and in the evening - but I got used to it - the same
as Dennis got used to make these trips several times a week when he wanted to
see me.

I loved "Sunny II". I would never leave it for a flat in the downtown.

I opened the door - ugh, my cottage looked like a sugared cake buried in the
heaps of snow - and as soon as I made a step inside, I felt I was not alone. I
recognized this feeling at once.

Oh you don't have to think I was sincere when I told I knew Ted wouldn't be
back. Despite everything - I continued to wait for him. For weeks and for
months. I read every article about Conrad Baxter's affair wondering if Ted was
still with him. I thought he had to be gone when the death sentence was
announced - or, at least, when the appeal was declined. I thought that, maybe,
then... and my heart faltered with every click, every new sound in the cottage.

But then I stopped waiting. Well, who knows what is more bitter: not to get what
you want desperately - or to get something you already stopped wanting. "I can't
call you my beloved." I entered the living room, switched on the light and saw
Ted sitting in the armchair.

He looked the same - and surely, he was not going to ever change - only now he
was not alone. A Siamese cat curled on his lap - and Ted's hand didn't caress
emptiness any more. It slid over the silky cocoa-colored fur. Pete raised his
blue unkind eyes at me and yawned demonstratively.

"Hi boy," I smiled looking at him. "Nice to meet you."

"And me?" Ted asked softly. I made myself to look at his face straight. I didn't
know what I felt. Should he come two or three months earlier - I would either
fall on my knees in front of him - or would bite my lips in anger. Now I even
didn't know what to say to him. I shrugged.

"Do you hate me very much?" there was just a tiny trace of challenge in his
voice. I smiled with relief.

"No. Not at all. Is Con dead?"

"Yes," he said.

"Now you are free."

"Yes," he nodded again. "And I found my Pete. We'll leave together."

"Good luck," I meant it. These were final words - I was ready to see how Ted's
figure would fade after them. But instead of it he spoke again, hastily:

"I just wanted to thank you, Jesse," he shifted uneasily and Pete on his lap
looked at me with disapproval. "Without you I would never get out, never. I
would stay at the earth forever, hang around alone. I have a thing for you. A
gift. Something in return."

I looked at him incomprehensibly. And then he waved his hand slightly. He melted
- his transparence became nothing and only his dark eyes and Pete's blue eyes
still looked at me until they were gone, too. But I continued to feel that there
was somebody. And when I turned to the bookcases, I saw a figure there, leaning
with his elbow against the board. My heart sank. I recognized him. Of course -
how wouldn't I? Even though I was sure I would never see him again.

"Elmor," I called.

The gaze of his soft shortsighted eyes fell on me and I saw him smiling quietly.
With his usual gentle smile that I never found any special when he was alive -
but could never forget since then.

And suddenly I heard him speaking to me. In my mind his voice was telling me
that he loved me, that he would love me forever. That he was wrong about me -
but now it was okay - he was tranquil, he had forgiven me and he knew I had
forgiven him. And he waited for me. One day - no matter when - we would meet and
then we would be together again - for eternity.

"Elmor," I cried; tears washed my face freely and I didn't wipe them. I could
see him even through the blur. I could hear him even when sobbing. "Oh my
Elmor."

And at that moment another figure appeared at the window. A tall slim man with
chocolate-colored skin. His teeth flashed white when he smiled at me. He waved
his hand before vanishing but I knew what he wanted to pass me. Johnny Taylor
had forgiven me, too.

And then I heard Ted's light voice sounding in my mind:

"Are you happy, Jesse?"

"Yes, yes," I could only whisper. "Thank you!"

He sighed minutely and it seemed to me that I heard relief and regret in it.

"Farewell then," Ted said and at that moment I realized finally that it was all.
Now it was forever. And then his melting voice added one more phrase:

"I love you, Jesse."

"Bye, Ted," I answered inaudibly.

What to add? They were gone. I don't see ghosts any more.

The End