The fall term began. Some of the other students I knew made a big deal about not being freshmen anymore. I had more substantial things on my mind.
In some ways the new school year was much like the first had been. Classes—I had to take Economics, which I hated—studying and practicing, working out in the pool. But of course, it was different, too: I had Danilo.
We had a practice meet against Villanova, and the three days I spent in Philadelphia, with no real contact with him, seemed endless. While I was gone there was another killing, another young man found dismembered, organs missing, an acting student this time. The killings were happening when I wasn’t around. I wasn’t at all certain whether to be grateful.
The administration and the police finally realized that the only way to deal with the rising wave of rumors and fear was to issue warnings to students and staff that “there may be a serial killer” on the loose. FBI experts were on the case, constructing a psychological profile of the killer. Needless to say, nothing in their reports came close to the truth. But the campus was tense.
Roland told me my pianism had slacked off during the summer, “You’re getting sloppy,” which was not something I expected to hear. Love is supposed to fire your art, not hinder it. But then I was still a boy in so many ways, still caught up in all the romantic patterns we’re taught to expect. I resolved to work harder.
“Are you still determined to do the Chopin second again?”
I told him I was.
“It’s such a bear. It might be better to shoot for next year.”
“I can do it, Roland. I know I can.”
“Why don’t you work on something else, too? Some Poulenc, maybe. So you’ll have something else prepared. Just in case, I mean.”
I knew what he meant.
He also suggested I stop using my keyboard. It was a discussion we had had before. The touch of an electronic piano is nothing like the touch of a real one; if you get too used to it, your playing suffers. But there were so many times I felt the urge to play, to express what I was feeling in a concrete way. In the middle of the night, in the early morning hours, whenever I needed to release what I was feeling. The music department, like everything else on campus, got locked down. But I also knew Roland was right, so I decided to spend as much time as I could practicing at the department.
When I told Danilo about it, he responded by giving me a set of keys to his house. “Play on the grand here whenever you like.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“You couldn’t.”
“That sounds like a challenge.” I grinned.
“Just once, young Mister Dunn, couldn’t you rein in your penchant for being annoying?”
“How would you know it was me, then?”
But the offer was made, and I was only too happy to take him up on it. His instrument was so much better than the ones for student use at the department.
The first night I went there to practice, he came up behind me and put his arms around me. I felt his lips on my throat. Then the tip of his tongue.
“Really, Professor, I thought I was invited here to study your etchings.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. But every time I see you, I…” He smiled sheepishly. “You’d think I’d be past this kind of thing.”
“Is anyone, ever?”
“I mean, at my age.”
“Face it, Danilo. We swimmer boys are irresistible.”
He laughed, tousled my hair and headed off to his study. I went back to the Chopin sonata. I was determined to get it right at the winter recital.
Later, after two hours of only the slightest progress—I tended to be impatient with myself, in ways Roland found frustrating—I found Danilo on the leather sofa in his den and sat down beside him. In a moment we were snuggling.
“I’ve been wondering…” I had needed to discuss something with him for weeks.
“Hm?” He was busy nuzzling my cheek.
“How can I explain to Justin what’s been happening to me—with us?”
He pulled back from me. “That wouldn’t be a good idea, Jamie.”
“He’s my friend. My best friend.”
“That’s hardly the point. You don’t know you can trust him, not with this. He couldn’t understand. Even men like him, who share our bloodline, don’t understand much. Or just don’t want to.”
“He’s my friend.”
“I know. But really, do you think he could understand? How long has it taken you? And he seems so…” He let his voice trail off, not wanting to say anything insulting.
“Dull? Yes.”
“Let’s just say that analytical thought isn’t his thing.”
“He’s a typical jock.” I saw his point. “It’s awkward, not being able to tell anyone about it.”
He got up and poured us each a glass of red wine. “As I said, even men who have the blood frequently don’t understand, or don’t want to. Justin’s friend Greg, for instance.”
He handed me my glass and I sipped. “You’re saying Greg is part of our bloodline too, that he is one of us? I never would have thought—” It caught me completely by surprise. “I thought he was too—”
“Kings do have idiot cousins, Jamie.”
We fell silent for a moment.
“What about Roland?”
He shook his head.
“Then it’s not merely a matter of who you love?” It was an unexpected thought. I had taken it for granted that we were all, more or less…
“It’s not that simple. As a mathematician might put it, we’re a subset.”
“Oh.” The wine was good burgundy. Danilo always had good wine on hand. “So Jus shares our blood but he couldn’t understand. Does that mean you’re going to kill him and eat him?”
He sighed an exaggerated sigh. “It’s just my luck, after 3,000 years, to fall in love with a brat.”
“Danilo?” I had a sudden serious thought. “I thought Roland must have the blood. He seems to understand me so well.” They had met several times, briefly.
“No. That, he could never understand.”
“So it really isn’t just a matter of who you love?”
“No.” He refilled my glass. “It’s about blood. It is both that simple and that complex. The ancient bloodline has been kept alive all these centuries. Sometimes in a more or less pure form. More often than you’d expect was possible. It is the driving force, the spark that made James I defend his love for Buckingham against their critics in Parliament. That made Camille Saint-Saens defy society and tell the truth about himself. That made Pope Julius III take the beautiful boy he fell in love with and make him a cardinal.” He paused for what seemed a long time. “But very often it is watered down, so to speak.”
I sipped my burgundy. “I always knew I was different. Even when I was a kid.”
He smiled. “Different from the people in Ebensburg? What a tragedy.”
“Different was the only thing I knew how to be.”
“The blood is the life, Jamie. And the power. You’ve read the Bible and the ancient scrolls. You understand that. You know the magic that lies in the organs of men who have been sacrificed. The Christians never… ” He shrugged and made a vague gesture. “They do not even understand why guards had to be put on the tomb of their Christ. The power in his body that had to be protected.”
It was still another new thought. “Jesus Christ was…?”
He nodded slowly. “You have seen the mention of his Beloved Disciple. And what do you think their holy communion commemorates?” He stopped and took a long drink. “The blood has kept me alive all these long millennia, so that I in turn could protect the bloodline, keep it vital.”
I pulled his arms around myself, buried myself in them. “Like a dragon swallowing its own tail.”
“You are the blood prophet, Jamie. The one who will revive the power, and the greatness.”
“You keep telling me that. I don’t even understand how—”
“You will. You’ve learned a great deal, very quickly. More quickly than most people are capable of. You will learn more.” He got up and refilled our glasses still again. “One day we will be able to proclaim our love to the world. And the world, or at least the part of it that matters, will honor us. As they did Hadrian and Antinous. As they did Alexander and Hephaestion.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted that. To be honored. It seemed so… I don’t know, undemocratic or something. “Danilo, will you stop these killings?”
“I can’t. That would mean death. My own death, and perhaps even yours. A thousand generations of our fathers and brothers need us to justify them.”
I put my head on his shoulder. Despite his warmth and his tenderness with me, I couldn’t help being a bit frightened by all of it. “Will you make me one promise, Danilo?”
“If I can, of course.”
“Promise me you won’t hurt Justin.”
“We may have to.”
“‘We? No, Danilo, I don’t think I could ever do that. Not to him.”
For a moment neither of us said anything. Then, involuntarily I found myself laughing. “If you have to take someone, let it be Greg.”
Danilo looked directly into my eyes and kissed me. Through the haze of three glasses of burgundy I wanted to put my mouth on every part of him, blood or no, killings or not. He inhaled the bouquet from his wine. “Greg is most emphatically one of us. But the odds that he would ever admit it or comprehend what admitting it means…” He smiled. “You could scan him with an electron microscope and not find a particle of understanding.”
“Sacrifice him, then.”
“I think,” he said, settling back beside me, “we can find more productive uses for him.”
* * *
Bubastis continued to grow, like the happy cat she was. There were no signs the incident with Greg had left any residual trauma, though she tended to hide when he was at the apartment. Intelligent creature. But now and then, every once in a rare while, she would wake from a sound sleep, obviously terrified of something. Dreaming. She would come to me, nestle in the crook of my arm and be calm again.
Justin won the state title for the high platform. There was a lot of publicity, at least on campus. The local news programs did stories too, covering him as an Olympic hopeful, but they forgot about him pretty quickly. All the attention, all the cameras and reporters, made Greg stay away, which was fine with me.
“You really love Danilo?” We were alone one night, studying for our classes.
I nodded. “I never thought I’d fall for an older man. But after Tim…” I fell silent. The memory of him always left me uneasy.
“Do the police tell you anything?” He set his book aside. “About what kind of progress they’re making, I mean.”
I shook my head. “They come around now and then with questions, do I remember such-and-such. I don’t think they’ll find who did it.” This was not a comfortable topic.
He groped for the right thing to say. “Some fiend, some psycho.”
“Maybe. Someone who is lost, at any rate.”
“I worry about you, Jamie. A man that old… it doesn’t seem right.”
“I would have thought so too, last year at this time.”
“Don’t you know any guys our age who…”
“No.” I said it emphatically.
“It’s because you never had a father.”
“Maybe. I’ve thought of that.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at me, Jamie. He’s a chicken hawk.”
“I don’t think so. He says he’s as amazed by our relationship as I am, and I believe him.” This was less and less what I wanted to be talking about.
He shook his head and went back to his textbook. “If you’re happy with him, then that’s great. I wish I could find someone who really…” He broke off self-consciously.
“Greg isn’t the one, then?” It was the nicest news I’d had in ages.
“No, I don’t think so. He’s too… too… I don’t know what. But you and Danilo. The two of you really kill me.”
After a few weeks all the attention for Jus died down and Greg started hanging around our place again. Mrs. Kolarik didn’t like him, ever since the night he hurt Bubastis. She told him he’d better behave or she’d call the police herself. When he complained about it to Justin, Jus was obviously nervous about it.
“She’s a fucking bitch, Jus. We need to teach her to mind her own business.”
I couldn’t resist cutting in. “She likes us. Both of us, Justin and me. I think she feels a bit motherly and protective toward us.”
“Fuck her.”
I smiled. “If she’s your type, Greg.”
I wasn’t really afraid of him, not anymore. But I knew he could still hurt me. He walked across the room and got in my face. “I’m talkin’ to my boyfriend, bitch boy. You stay the fuck out of it.”
I laughed, “Oh, yes sir!”
He pushed me and I stumbled a few feet back.
Justin quickly got between us. “Why don’t the two of you stop it? We all have to get along here.”
“Tell him to stop riding me.” Greg said the words into my face, not directly to Justin.
He forced us apart. “I want this to stop, Greg.”
“Then fuck you, too.” Greg got his jacket and stomped out of the apartment.
For a moment neither of us said anything. But I couldn’t resist adding a smartass footnote to it all. “And you have doubts about my relationship. Has he ever hit you, Jus?”
“No.” I think he was lying.
“He will.”
“No, Jamie, he wouldn’t.”
“You see how he behaves.”
Mrs. Kolarik interrupted us. She had just baked a chocolate cake, and she brought us the first two slices. It was delicious.
* * *
Archaic Egypt, the very earliest times, before the pharaohs, even. Danilo asked me to catalog a collection of pots and fragments of rock with inscriptions on them. They’d been sitting in the sub-basement for years, maybe decades, unlooked-at.
The writing was crude, not the hieroglyphs I was becoming used to. And the art was too; the standards that defined Egypt’s art so beautifully for three millennia had not jelled yet.
I sorted through them at a worktable in the catacombs. At my insistence, Danilo had had more lights installed. It was a bit of a strain on the department’s budget, but it made sense and it was long overdue. Even so, I was still uneasy when I went down there alone. Hell, I was even nervous when I was there with Danilo. On edge constantly. The slightest sound made me jump. Danilo had promised me I’d be safe as long as I avoided the lowest sub-basement, but…
Among them I found a piece of granite with part of a relief cut into it. It appeared to be of two men kissing. I thought I could make out the name of one in the archaic script: Set. The other one must be Horus. The story of their love—or rather, of their sexual relationship—must go back to the beginning of recorded time.
I took it to Danilo and showed it to him. He inspected it carefully, with a magnifier.
“You can make out this ancient writing?”
“Just a bit. Mostly I’m guessing.”
“You’re a good guesser. And this is quite a find.” He switched on a reading lamp and inspected it more closely. “Yes. This must be the earliest depiction of them ever found. I’ll have to write a monograph.” He looked up at me and smiled. “Or rather, we will. You found it.”
“I’m not an Egyptologist. No one would take anything seriously if it had my name on it. It would be like you playing Poulenc.”
He got up from his desk and straightened his clothes. “You’re probably right. But even so, you’re the one who found it. And recognized what it is. Otherwise it might have sat in the catacombs for more long years. Most undergraduates would have simply put it back in storage. You deserve at least a mention.”
There was a quick knock at the door. It opened and Feld came in. He had a student with him, a pale, slight, red-haired boy. For a startled instant, I thought he was Grant.
Danilo beamed at them. “Professor Feld, I’m glad you’re here. Look at what Jamie’s found.”
Feld examined it, turned it over in his fingers. He looked dubious; it wasn’t very impressive at first glance. “What is it?”
Danilo explained what it was and why it was important. “A vital contribution to our understanding of the development of Egyptian religion.”
“Oh.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “So, Mister Dunn has made a lucky find.”
“Luck was a part of it, yes.” Danilo was finding his obtuseness or stubbornness amusing, I could tell. “But he recognized it for what it is. He understood at once how important it is.”
Feld ignored this mild dig. “I wanted to introduce you to my new research assistant.” The young man took a step into the room. “Professor Semenkaru, this is Peter Borzage.”
Danilo said hello and introduced him to me. We shook hands. He was queer, I was sure of it. “So, you found something important?”
I smiled a smug little smile and nodded.
“I hope I can.”
“If you are as lucky as Mister Dunn, you will. Let’s go.” Feld took him by the arm, and they left.
I stared after them. “Love in bloom.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Feld had it in him. He’s married and says he’s Christian. He seems to think the Greeks and Romans were only important to the extent they paved the way for Christianity. Working with all those statues of naked athletes must have finally gotten to him.”
“Little Peter is one of us.” I hesitated, not quite sure of myself. “Isn’t he?”
“You’re learning. Quickly.” Danilo smiled and examined the relief again. “This really is an extraordinary find. Your name will be under mine on the paper, quite definitely.”
“Now I belong to the ages.”
He sighed. “Brat.”
“Everybody gets the lover they deserve.”
He swiped at me playfully, but I ducked and ran out of his office.
* * *
I had never really spent much time in the Greco-Roman part of the museum. But as I was leaving, I saw Peter there. He was looking up at a sculpture of a nude discus thrower, slightly larger than life-size. I had noticed it before myself, once or twice. It was a Roman copy of a Greek original. The lines of the body were perfect. Even the way the pubic hair was rendered seemed sensuous. It was hard to mistake his interest in it.
From the doorway I said, “A long way from Feld, isn’t it?”
When he saw me, he smiled and waved. “Come on in.”
I joined him and we shook hands again. “Borzage. Are you related to the director?”
“What director?” His bafflement showed.
“Nothing.”
He was shorter than me, with a much slighter build. No one could mistake him for an athlete. His eyes were pale blue, and his hair was the most shockingly bright red. I couldn’t resist saying something about it. “They say King David had red hair.”
“King David?”
“You know, the one who loved Jonathan?” It was as bold as I had ever been with anyone.
He blushed rather alarmingly. “I—I—I—”
“Relax. You’re among friends.”
“F-friends? I—I—”
Oh. Oh dear. I hadn’t realized he was so easily flustered. “Never mind. How did you come to work for Feld?”
“I’m in a few of his classes.” He was still looking at me as if I might bite. “I’m majoring in Classics with a minor in Archaeology.”
Not exactly a career move, but then I was a classical pianist. He was a sophomore, like me. A native Pittsburgher. He lived at the Delta Kappa Tau frat house. He kept mentioning his “brothers.” I resisted asking the obvious question about life there, much as I wanted to know.
My eyes were drawn back to the discus thrower. “These old statues are so beautiful.”
He nodded. He couldn’t seem to find any words.
“I’m on my way to lunch. Want to get a sandwich?”
“No, thanks.” He looked over his shoulder. “I’m eating with Professor Feld.”
“Oh.” I tried not to make the word too insinuating, but he caught my meaning.
“We’re teacher and student, that’s all.”
“Danilo and I seem to have started a fashion around here. Feld’s not the easiest man. I hope you get along with him.”
“I like him.”
Oh. No arguing taste. “Well, I guess we’ll be seeing each other around. Will you be doing any work down in the catacombs?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“My office is down the hall from Danilo’s. If I can be of any help—you know, getting oriented around here—just let me know.”
“Thanks.” He shook my hand, rather stiffly. I don’t think either of us had any idea what to make of the other. But something told me…
He looked so much like Grant.
* * *
We did see each other around the museum, quite a bit over the next several weeks. And I was more and more certain what I had in mind was the right thing to do. It wasn’t too hard to connive for Justin to meet the two of us “by accident” at the Z. And they hit it off exactly as I’d hoped they would. On our third get-together Jus asked him for a date. When they thought no one was looking they touched hands under the table. It was all so sweet. And better yet, it meant Greg was history, or would be before long.
Danilo worked on his monograph. When it was nearly done, he asked me how I’d like my name to appear.
“You mean I get to choose, like a movie star? Call me Cary.”
He laughed. I knew what he was going to say, and the words came out of our mouths simultaneously. “He was one of us.”
Again, he laughed. “You know me too well.”
“That isn’t possible. I could never have enough of you.”
“Flirt. Nearly all the great screen lovers were. Valentino, Gary Cooper, Chevalier…”
“I already know all that. I’ve been a movie buff since I was a kid.”
“And a gossip.” He grinned. “See? I know you pretty well too.”
“You’re the one with all the backstairs news about Erasmus and James Buchanan, Danilo.”
“Yes.” He was smug. “I am. But it’s hardly backstairs. First-hand would be more like it.”
“You knew them? All of them?” I knew his passion for history, and it was fast becoming mine, too. He told me how Leonardo had spent time in prison for making love to an underage boy. He even had a photo of Clyde Barrow, autographed “To Danilo, with Love.”
“As many as I could.”
We headed to the Z, which neither of us liked. Actually no one liked it, but it was so damned convenient to everything on campus. Jus and Peter were there. The blush of new love was hard to mistake. We stopped at their table and chatted for a few moments, then left them to themselves.
“I was asking seriously, Danilo.” I couldn’t let go of what we’d been talking about. “You seem to have known so many of our…” I found myself borrowing his phrase. “… our fathers and brothers.”
He smiled a gentle smile. “A lot of them weren’t exactly fatherly. Or brotherly. But even without television and the internet, news traveled. When I heard about a king or an artist or a philosopher who, people said, was…” He grinned playfully and made a twisted little gesture with his hand. “I made it my business to seek him out and make his acquaintance and educate him.” He scanned the menu, as if everyone on campus didn’t know it by heart. “Some were grateful, some not. Scott Fitzgerald was unpleasant. Dag Hammerskjöld was cold. Nero was, well, Neronian.”
I had to ask. I had no illusions that I might be his first love, but I had to ask. “Did you sleep with all of them?”
“Not all, no.” He broke into a mischievous grin. “Most of the popes only liked boys. Let’s get something to eat.”
It seemed so implausible. There were moments when I had my doubts about Danilo’s sanity. But I had seen him heal Bubastis. I had seen him go from older to younger time and again. Any scruples I had about him—about the way he stayed alive—disappeared when I was with him and felt his touch.
There was a disturbance at the other end of the restaurant. It was Greg. He was at Justin and Peter’s table, shouting and banging his fist. There was some commotion and a campus cop escorted him out. Just looked a bit startled. Peter’s pale complexion had turned bright red.
I told Danilo I’d be right back and went to their table. “Are you both all right?”
The both of them nodded but didn’t say anything. I was tempted to tell Jus I-told-you-so, but what would have been the point? He surely understood. “Why don’t you come and join Danilo and me?”
They said no thanks. They got their jackets and left. They weren’t talking to one another.
* * *
Sometimes I worked out in the pool late at night. I liked it when no one else was around; when I needed to think, it made concentrate easier. The water was a bit cooler, and I could swim for hours. My butterfly always needed work. I frequently thought of Tim then. Always with mixed feelings. His blood, his death had helped continue Danilo’s life. How could I know what to feel?
One night after a long practice at the music department I decided I needed to work off some energy. The finale of the sonata still wasn’t coming, and I was angry at myself. Roland always told me it would take time. “There aren’t more than a handful of players in the world who can really do justice to that last movement, Jamie. I’ve told you. Ashkenazy, Pollini, Argerich.”
“I’m not in their class.”
“You will be, one day. But you have to take it slow, give it time.”
I understood perfectly what he meant, but I was too impatient. Working on it always left me frustrated. I headed for the pool.
The athletic complex always seemed strange to me when there was no one there, uncharacteristically peaceful, devoid of the usually abundant testosterone. And cool. There were only work lights on, so it was pleasantly dark. I stripped and got into my Speedo and plunged into the water. Almost at once I could feel myself relaxing, the tension dissipating.
I swam for half an hour, and I felt wonderful. The rush of the water along my body was always so exhilarating.
There was someone else in the building.
I didn’t make anything of it. One of the divers had had the same idea I did. Or maybe one of the runners wanted to use the track. Then I realized who it was.
Greg Wilton was standing at the side of the pool, staring at me, or rather glaring, the hatred plain to see. His hands were folded behind his back. I hung motionless, watching him. I could tread water for hours, and he could never reach me in the pool.
“Get out of there, faggot.”
I laughed at him. “Come and get me.”
“I said get out of there.”
“Is that menace you’re trying to convey, Greg? You’re not doing a very good job.”
He moved his hands. He was holding a baseball bat. “You fucked with me and my boyfriend.”
“He’s not your boyfriend anymore.”
A security guard came in on his late-night rounds. Greg glared at him, then at me. “Later, Dunn”
I knew he was violent. I’d have to be careful. I chatted with the guard, who knew me from all the nights I swam there. After a while, when I was sure Greg must be gone, I got out and headed for the locker room.
Greg was there, waiting. He swung the bat and hit me square on the head. Everything spun. I fell.
“Don’t ever fuck with me again, queer boy.”
He raised the bat. I winced, bracing myself for another blow to my head. Instead he hit my fingers. I felt them crack and I cried out in the worst pain I had ever felt.
It wasn’t enough for him. He caught my fingers and bent them back till they were all broken. He twisted them.
“Let’s see you play your goddamn fag piano now, cocksucker.”
I cried out. The pain was terrible.
Then everything went black.
* * *
Hospital room. Hospital smell in the air.
I woke and looked around.
Justin was at one side of the bed, Roland at the other. My hands were in casts. There were IV tubes in my arms, and some kind of monitoring device whirred and hummed on a stand beside me.
Seeing me awake, Roland stood and kissed my forehead gently. “Jamie.”
I looked up at him. Jus came close and touched my cheek.
Then I remembered what had happened. Greg. My fingers shattered, destroyed. There would be no more Chopin.
I felt tears coming. I didn’t much want to cry in front of them but there would be no more piano for me, no way to express myself. They would never heal the way they had been.
“How do you feel?” I could read the pain in Justin’s face. He blamed himself. He was still stroking my cheek.
“I want to die. That’s how I feel.”
“Jamie, that’s no way to talk.”
“Isn’t it?”
“They caught Greg. The security guard caught him beating you, even though you were already unconscious. You have a concussion.” I saw a tear in his eye, too. “This is my fault, Jamie. I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you about him.”
Roland looked at him. “The thug who did this was your… ?”
I could see a slight panic in Justin’s eyes. He was being asked. After a moment he swallowed hard and said, “My boyfriend, yes.”
Roland didn’t seem to know how to react to this.
Where was Danilo? I tried to move my fingers, but of course I couldn’t. Still, there was awful pain. I cried out, not loudly.
They both stared at me. Neither seemed to know what to say. How could they?
My Chopin was gone. I cried and could not make myself stop.
“Professor Semenkaru had to go out for a while. He’ll be back soon.” Roland seemed not to approving of what he was telling me.
“He was here?”
Jus nodded. “Some lovers really are lovers.”
Roland shifted uncomfortably and tried to put on a professional air. “The guard called Justin. He called me and Semenkaru.”
“Don’t let him go after Greg.” I tried to adjust myself in the bed but couldn’t. Roland helped me shift my weight.
“Go after him?” Roland smiled. “He’s an archaeologist, not a gunslinger.”
I looked at Jus. “Don’t let him, okay?” Then I turned to Roland. “I guess I never will get that last movement right, huh?”
“For God’s sake, Jamie, stop doing this to yourself.”
“I can’t help it. The only thing I’ve ever wanted to be is a pianist. The only thing I’ve ever loved is the music I play. That, and Tim, and Danilo.” We all fell quiet for a moment. “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say.” Jus tried to give me a drink of water, but I wasn’t thirsty and pushed the glass away. At least my hands were good for that.
“This room is his doing.” Roland was sounding more and more like a professor. He must have thought it would help. “Your student med insurance wouldn’t cover a private room. He told them he’d make up the difference. He insisted.”
I stared at him, hard, as if to tell him, don’t say he doesn’t love me.
“The police have Greg. Everyone on campus is relieved, now they know who’s been behind all the attacks. They’re questioning him now.”
This startled me. I almost laughed. Greg, the fall guy for Danilo and me. It was too perfect. “They think he… ?”
Jus nodded. “It could have been me he went after next. I told them how he screamed and threatened me.”
“So, you’re a bit of a hero.” Roland smiled for the first time. “You helped put an end to the nightmare this school has been through.”
I looked at my hands. “Big deal. Big goddamned deal. What do I get?”
“It could have been worse, Jamie. You could be dead.”
“Without my hands, I am.”
“They can fix them. There are wonderful new therapies. I’ll have you at the keyboard again in no time.”
All I could do was cry.
* * *
Danilo had not come. I fell asleep wondering why.
Then, in the smallest hours of the night, I woke and saw him standing in my doorway, carrying a wooden chest under one arm.
We kissed. He held me. The pain seemed not so bad.
The light in the room was dim, but I could see tears on his face. “I thought there would be time. I thought we could delay this. I never thought…” From his chest he took a large candle. He struck a match and lit it. “Pure beeswax,” he whispered, “like the ones they use in church.”
There was an empty part of me. Danilo loved me, I loved him, it gave meaning to my life, but there was a hole in me now and always would be.
A nurse came to the door and saw us. “It’s past visiting hours.”
Danilo turned and stared at him. “Leave us.”
He took a step into the room. “You have to go. And that candle is a fire hazard. Extinguish it now. Or else I’ll call security.”
“You will not.”
Danilo spread his arms wide. The nurse’s eyes followed them. He seemed to go into a trance. Danilo told him to leave and forget he had seen him there; and he did.
Then he lit a second candle beside the bed and began to chant in what I knew was the language of ancient Egypt. The flames rose and turned red.
He made gestures over me. I didn’t understand why.
He pressed his lips to my eyes, then to my heart, then to my genitals, and chanted more.
Then he produced a shallow bowl. It seemed to be made of gold. By the candlelight I could see a row of hieroglyphics inscribed on it.
From one of his pockets he brought out a bottle. Ancient glass, a piece from the museum; I thought I had seen it, or ones like it, in the display cases. It was filled with bright red blood.
He poured it into the golden bowl. I understood now. As he said more prayers over me, I drank.
When I bled from cuts as a little boy, my blood had always tasted salty to me. This blood was sweet. It tasted like Danilo.
I drank. Greedily.
He prayed to the gods, or to one god; I knew which.
And I felt life and energy flow through me like a river. My hands tingled, my fingers were alive with electricity. And I had an erotic reaction; I felt myself become erect.
“Feel the power, Jamie.” He whispered. “And this is nothing compared to what you will feel when your own power reaches its height.” He put his hand on my thigh. “This is only the beginning.”
We both fell silent. He studied my face. “It has worked, then,” he said into my ear.
“I don’t know. I felt something. They don’t hurt.”
“Quietly, Jamie. The things we do must be done in stillness and the dark.”
He bent down and kissed me.
In the candlelight I saw that there was a trace of blood on his own lips. He was young and beautiful. We had shared communion, then.
“You must keep the casts on for a few weeks, perhaps a month or more. The healing will seem miraculous, but they will be able to rationalize it then. An overnight healing… that would be too much.”
He placed his hands on mine. “You will play again, Jamie, more beautifully than before.”
“I never thought I would. Danilo, I—”
He held up a finger. “Shh. Quiet now. Your body needs sleep. I’ll spend the night here beside you.”
I wanted to ask him who he had taken that night, whose blood… But it didn’t seem to matter.
* * *
Two weeks later, he had to go out of town to attend a professional conference in Chicago. The University of Chicago has an Oriental Institute, the most important center of Egyptological studies in America. He wanted to show some colleagues the relief I had found.
It seemed I had become, quite without wanting to, a bit of a hero on campus, the one who survived the campus killer. There were notes of sympathy from the dean and the chancellor, from my teachers, from students I barely knew or couldn’t remember. I was on the news. Inevitably, the story of Justin and Greg’s affair came out.
Roland arranged for me to take the rest of the semester off. And I could take another one if I needed it. The university was prepared to be as generous and forbearing with me as I needed. He kept telling me I’d play again. I did not believe him; I believed Danilo.
Justin kept fussing over me, taking care of me. It took me hours of argument to persuade him he didn’t have to feed and dress me. His guilt was so touching. It occurred to me in the middle of one of our little exchanges that I had never had a real friend before.
He and Peter had been dating. I don’t think either of them knew how serious it was, or how serious he wanted it to be. Then when the facts about Jus and Greg made the news, Peter was obviously shaken by it. “I can’t have people know,” he told Jus. “I couldn’t do that to my family. And my frat brothers would… well, they wouldn’t understand.” So their affair ended.
Each night, Bubastis slept beside me on my pillow, purring gently. Mornings, I’d wake to find her licking my nose, wanting to be fed.
Greg was being held without bail. The police were doing everything they could to prove he was the serial murderer. He kept saying I was the only one he wanted to kill, as if that would let him off the hook. And he kept insisting he and Jus had not been boyfriends, claiming rather desperately not to be gay. There was a lot of coarse humor around town at his expense; I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
At first, his basketball coach had tried to deny Greg could possibly be queer; when that got laughed at, he just kept telling everyone, “No comment.” That, I found very entertaining.
In two weeks that went by, I hadn’t left our apartment. Jus had tried to get me to go out, saying it would be good for me. But I refused every time. My hands were clumsy in their casts, and the concussion had left me a bit light-headed. The doctors said that would pass.
Then one night he suggested the campus observatory. “Neither of us had ever gone up there, Jamie, and I keep hearing it’s a really cool place.”
“I’m not sure I feel like it.”
“I called them. When I told them you were coming they offered to give us a private tour. They said Mars is at its nearest approach, and asked if we would be interested in seeing it.”
Mars. I didn’t hesitate. I told him we should get going.
There was a private shuttle bus waiting for us outside. The university ran them all over campus, but I had never heard of them sending one for just two students before. I was more of a celebrity than I’d thought.
The driver, an astronomy grad student named Mark, fussed over me, made sure I was comfortable. “Would you like me to put on a classical CD?”
“No thanks.”
“I have some jazz, then.”
“Sure.”
Ella Fitzgerald serenaded us. It was a half-hour drive, to the northern part of the city. For part of the way I leaned on Justin, and he put an arm around me. The observatory sat on a high hill. There were three domes, an enormous one flanked by two smaller ones. Mark told us it was the highest point in the county. “This place was built back in the 1800s. There were no houses or stores around then. This was pure country.”
“As long as the music isn’t.” Smartass Jamie.
And we got our tour, again by Mark. He showed us the two refractor telescopes in the side domes and the gargantuan reflector in the main one. There were rooms full of computers, rooms full of lenses and other optical equipment, huge archives of old photos and research notes. In the basement we saw, somewhat to our surprise, the tomb of the man who had built the place. It was under a red granite monument inscribed with a quote from the Bible: “And the morning stars sang together.”
“And now,” Mark announced dramatically, “it’s show time.”
He led us back up to the main dome, the one with the enormous telescope. There was a paddle with electronic controls. The huge dome began to rotate, slowly, making a low rumbling sound. The telescope swung around, following the slit in it. It was all impressive, even a bit awe-inspiring, like the parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. “We don’t normally let the public look through this one,” he said. “It’s reserved for research. But you’re a hero.”
“A hero?” I laughed. “Try victim.”
“If it wasn’t for you, Greg Wilton would still be loose.”
I let it go. The dome and the telescope danced above us then came to a quiet stop. The slit in the dome opened. Mark switched off the lights and wheeled a stepped platform into place at the eyepiece. “Gentlemen, take a look at Mars, the Great God of War.”
There was a little platform on wheels with a ladder attached. Mark positioned it by the eyepiece, and I climbed the steps and put my eye to the lens. It was there. The fact he had been able to point the telescope at it without seeing it seemed a bit magical to me. The planet was a ruddy orange disk. There were darker markings across it, some dark green, some brownish like dried blood. I could just barely make out one of the polar caps.
Mars. Set. Watching it, I tried to remember what Danilo had told me: the ancients believed the planets were the souls of the gods. Seeing Mars, it was hard to believe. There seemed no real mystery about it, strange and even beautiful as it was. The markings were random. I thought I could understand how they might seem ordered, connected, but they clearly weren’t.
“Mars has always been associated with war, blood and death.” Mark gave us what sounded like a canned lecture. “The Persians, the Syrians, the Greeks, the Romans, even the Druids saw it that way. Every primitive society we know of.”
“Primitive?” I decided to goad him a bit. “Isn’t that politically incorrect?”
“Well, early, then. Scientifically primitive. You know what I mean.” I noticed a wedding band on his finger.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
Jus tugged on my pants leg. “Do you mind if I get a look?”
“I’m the hero, here, remember?”
“Oh.”
I was only kidding. I stepped down and let him take my place at the eyepiece.
I asked Mark, “And what about the Egyptians? What did they make of Mars?”
His face went blank. “I… I don’t know. Same as the others, I guess.”
Jus stood and stared for a moment. “I think I can see the canals.”
“There are no canals,” Mark explained quickly, “just random surface markings”
“I can see them.”
“It’s just a trick of the eye,” Mark told him. “An illusion.”
Jus looked down at us, then back into the eyepiece. “I could swear…”
It made me surprisingly uncomfortable. “So much for Mars,” I told Mark. “How about the goddess of love, now?”
“Venus isn’t visible just now.”
“Oh.”
He showed us more, galaxies, nebulae, the planet Pluto, which looked like just another faint star. When we’d seen enough, we thanked him, and he drove us home.
Justin made a late dinner, pasta and a salad. We sat down to eat. He seemed out of sorts. “I think I’m sorry we went up there.”
I had quite enjoyed it. “Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“I felt like a damned fool. Having him tell me what I know I was seeing wasn’t there.”
“You’re not the first to see canals on Mars, Jus.”
“Even so. He made me feel like an idiot.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”
We ate without saying much more. Just as I was about to get up from the table he said, “And I saw all kinds of things in Greg that weren’t there. What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. Not a thing.”
“I’m stupid.”
“No, Jus. You’re human.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I paused. “No, I guess not.”
Later, in the living room, as I was reading, he went on. “I hate feeling stupid, Jamie. I know I’m not. But everybody thinks because I’m a jock, I’m an airhead.”
“I don’t.”
“It’s different for you. You play the piano, and those sonatas and things. People know you have a brain.”
I held up my casts.
“Oh. Sorry.”
I set my book aside. “Look, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t know how I could have gotten through this without you.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten into it without me.”
“You don’t know that.”
For the thirtieth time, he apologized. Then we fell silent. Nothing I could think of could make him feel better. I only wished he’d get over it. Maybe, I thought, when my casts came off and I could play again, he’d stop feeling so awful.
“Jus?”
“Hm?”
“You ever think about dying?”
“On this campus? And with Greg in my life? How could I not?”
“I mean your own death. The end to your existence. The nothing we all face, sooner or later.”
“Life is nothing now. Peter won’t come near me. No one will.”
Justin was 20 years old, a college diver, and gorgeous. He could have lovers by the score if he wanted them. But there was no way to tell him that. He didn’t want to hear it.
I made myself smile at him. “If you could live forever… if there was something you could do to become immortal… would you do it?”
He laughed, rather bitterly, I thought. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Just say there was something.”
“I wouldn’t want my life to go on one minute longer than it has to. No.”
Oh. It had only been a thought. He got up and headed for his room. I went back to my book.
* * *
Much as I loved Danilo, and much as I trusted him, it was hard to believe my shattered fingers would play again, at least not well.
After another month the doctors x-rayed my hands and found the bones had knitted perfectly. They were pleased but rather obviously baffled by it. “You must have good genes,” one of them told me, as if that explained anything. They said they wanted me to keep the casts on for another week, “just to be sure,” but that my hands looked perfect. Word of the “West Penn Medical Miracle” spread, and I found myself the object of attention again. Not that I wanted it; all I wanted was to get the casts off and get back to my music.
Danilo cooked dinner for me most nights; Justin did it when Danilo couldn’t. I kept hoping Danilo was right, that I would play again, it seemed to be all I could think of. But I could hardly talk to anyone about it, not Jus, not Roland, certainly not Danilo. How could I tell him I wasn’t sure I believed what he was promising?
On the day I was finally to have the casts off, Danilo offered to cancel his classes and come with me. But it seemed pointless. “I’m only going to get them cut off. It’s not like I’m having surgery or anything.”
“Will you promise to come to my office, first thing?”
“Sure.” I found his concern touching but a little bit funny.
In the hospital waiting room I ran into Peter, of all people. He wasn’t exactly someone I wanted to see. At least he and Jus hadn’t gotten too serious before he panicked and hid in his closet.
He asked how I was, said he’d read about my healing in the news, all the stuff I’d been hearing from everybody. I wanted him to go away.
“Why are you here, Peter? Did you stub your toe on your closet door?”
He mouthed the words “HIV test.”
“Isn’t that a mighty bold step for a cautious guy like you?”
“I think I need it. I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me.”
“I can’t help it. Shame and timidity always strike me as funny.”
“Oh.” He fell silent. “I’ve been getting more than my share of that from my frat brothers. They heard about Justin on the news, and…”
“And?”
“Well, they knew he was the guy I had been hanging out with. The fairy jokes still haven’t let up.”
“I thought they were your brothers.”
“Don’t rub it in, okay?”
I felt no sympathy for him. He had hurt Justin, not badly but he had hurt him, for nothing that seemed at all reasonable to me. I pretended to have to use the men’s room, and when I came back, I sat pointedly as far away from him as I could.
He refused to take the hint; he got up and moved beside me again.
In a confidentially low tone he said, “There are rumors that all Greg Wilton’s victims were…” He seemed not to want to say the word. “… like us.”
“Us? You and I don’t have much in common, Peter.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
He ignored my deliberate obtuseness. “I don’t see how that can have been, though. A lot of them had girlfriends, or fiancées, even. One of them was married.”
“Well, that settles the matter, then.”
“I even went to a meeting of the campus gay group. When I asked, they laughed at me, the way you’ve been doing.”
“Then stop being laughable.”
“Jamie, I’m afraid. If my family finds out… ”
“I won’t tell them, okay? Now will you leave me alone?”
He got up and moved away. But he kept staring at me across the room. If I hadn’t been so anxious to get the casts off, I’d have left.
After another ten minutes, awkward ones, the nurse called my name. They did another quick set of X-rays, “just to be 100% sure,” then cut the casts. For the first time in six weeks I was able to move my fingers. It felt wonderful. The doctor warned me to take it easy with them, but I wanted to get to Danilo’s and play.
Just as I got back to the waiting room, they were calling Peter’s name. As we passed each other, he caught hold of my arm. “We can’t all be as brave as you, Jamie.”
“I’m not all that brave.”
“If I were you, I’d never be out and about today. Not after the news.”
It was the first thing he’d said that caught my interest. “What news?”
“Haven’t you heard? Greg Wilton escaped from the police this morning.”
He went inside. I hadn’t heard a thing about it.
Greg, loose.
I had no idea what to think or feel. I headed straight for the museum. Danilo was between classes. He held my hands. “How do they feel?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t used them for so long, I’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to feel like.”
He massaged my fingers. His touch was wonderful. I told him about Greg.
“Oh.” He hadn’t heard, either. “If he has any sense at all, he’ll leave town. Do you know where he’s from?”
“Someplace in Indiana, I think.”
“That’s where he’ll head, then.”
Walking home, I couldn’t think of anything else. Everyone knew he was queer, now. He would blame me for that.
I stopped at Mrs. Kolarik’s, wanting to show my newly-free hands, but she didn’t seem to be home. So I headed upstairs, to our place.
The door was open. It was unlike Jus not to close it. When I got inside, I called Bubastis. She was gone.
“Jus?”
He must have had a late class, or a date or something.
“Jus?”
Nope, he wasn’t home.
Bubastis had run away. I prayed she’d come back.
I felt restless. Danilo’s. I needed to play. Feeling the response of the keys under my fingers after all that time would be paradise.
The day was a slight bit chilly. Jus had borrowed my sweatshirt. I went into his room.
He was on the bed, his throat slit. Blood soaked everything.
I heard a movement behind me and turned. I caught the briefest flash of Greg’s face, filled with rage or hatred, or both. I saw the knife in his hand. Then I felt the blade cut into my throat. Slowly.
I needed to vomit. But all that came out of my mouth was blood.