Pittsburgh. Winter. Snow and ice in the streets, bitter wind. There was a storm the night Danilo and I got home, a severe one. We had flown home; Danilo had to teach in the new semester and time was short. But there were airport delays in both New York and Pittsburgh. The cab took nearly four hours to get us home from the airport.
When we finally reached our house, it was late night and lights were burning. Our neighbor was there, playing with Bubastis and keeping the place warm. He had lit a fire for us. We gave him the souvenir we’d brought for him, an Old Kingdom vase, very rare, very valuable. He looked at it and registered disappointment. Real Egyptian artifacts tend to be unimpressive; tourists like the flashier imitations that are made by the hundreds and sold as “authentic Egyptian,” which in a way they are. When Danilo told him what it was worth, his frown turned to a smile very quickly.
Bubastis was all over us. She had grown still more. Having her greet us so enthusiastically made the house feel more like a real home. I played with her and cuddled her for a long time.
I had decided to skip the spring semester to focus on my pianism and my swimming.
* * *
A week or so later Danilo dropped a bombshell on me. I was at the piano, trying my hand at the Schubert D Major sonata, when he came in and put his hands on my shoulders. He couldn’t have been more obviously agitated. “Jamie, I want you to get your own place.”
I had been so happy living with him. And I had done my best not to be a nuisance in any way. I went numb. “But Danilo, I… I…”
“It is only for show. A precaution. You need to have your own residence. You were only supposed to be living with me as a temporary measure, remember?”
“No one will ask about us. You always say so.”
“Someone is asking. My colleague Feld is prying. I think he may even have been sniffing around the fourth sub-basement.”
Oh. “But… can’t you simply… can’t you compel him to stop? I’ve seen you do it with other people.”
“I can make him stop, yes. But I think he may already have told other people, and I have no way of knowing who. The administration, and maybe even the police, if he really was down there.”
“Ask him. Make him tell you.”
“The damage has already been done.” He sounded as sad as I felt. “This is only for show. Understand that. You can still sleep here, eat here, live here, really. But I want you to have your own place, on the record, in case untoward questions are being asked.”
It all came out of nowhere. I hardly had time to think how I felt. “Danilo, you’ve always warned me against denying my nature.”
“I am not asking you to deny who and what you are, Jamie. There is nothing I would want less than that. But your connection to me… that, you need to be more circumspect about.”
“Other faculty members have affairs with students. I’ve seen them. Everyone has.”
“It is not a matter of our affair. The legal authorities may become involved. I don’t know what Feld may have seen in the sub-level. Or what he may have guessed.”
This was as troubling as the rest of our talk. I had to ask it. “What could he have seen?”
“In time, Jamie.”
“I can’t deny my nature. You’ve taught me that. My nature is to love you.” I added, weakly, “And yours is to love me.”
“And I do. That is why I don’t want you vulnerable to the authorities. Love me any way you want to. I am yours. Part of my love must be protection. You must understand that.”
I was not at all sure I did. Not that kind of protection.
Fortunately, there was an empty apartment in a house just across the street from Danilo’s. The police let me into my old place, and we moved my furniture there.
The landlord was a retired steelworker named Dougherty. He was unfriendly; he kept making comments about what a mistake it was to rent to a student. I kept telling him what a quiet life I lead, no parties, no carousing, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Even Danilo’s vouching for me didn’t help.
The house was old and drafty. There were stained glass windows, a lot like the ones at Danilo’s house, but they were faded and cracked. Bubastis didn’t seem to like the place. Neither did I. Danilo found a spinet for me. Some workmen moved it in the day after I moved the rest of my things.
After a few days the landlord confronted me and asked why I never seemed to be at home, even at night. I looked him firmly in the eye and instructed him not to ask again and not to mention it to anyone else. He didn’t.
Except in the narrowest, most technical sense, I was still living with Danilo. I regretted the necessity. I knew, or suspected, that it meant something awful was going to happen to us.
* * *
My hands felt fine. The blood of the pharaohs had healed them. I spent hours at the grand, playing Chopin, Schubert, Poulenc… Roland was amazed at what I could do. When I asked him to let me play in the spring recital, he was obviously a bit reluctant. But I played the Chopin second for him and got it note-perfect.
He took my hands in his and felt my fingers. “Michael Columbus said it would be a year or more before they healed properly. If they did at all.”
“He was wrong.”
“So, I see.” He couldn’t keep his puzzlement from showing. I wished he’d express a bit of pleasure or at least satisfaction. “I guess you’ll be playing this spring, then. Some Schubert, maybe?”
“No, the Chopin second. I have to show everyone I can do it.”
He looked me up and down. “Is everything all right, Jamie?”
I played dumb; told him I didn’t know what he meant.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right? after all the… unpleasantness?”
“Is that what you call it when somebody dies, Roland? Unpleasantness?”
“Don’t be disagreeable, Jamie. I know you understand why I’m concerned.”
I did. And I knew it was foolish to spar with him. “I’m fine, Roland. Thanks.”
Danilo had a heavy teaching load in the new semester. The university had asked him to take a freshman Western Civilization class, to cover for a teacher on sabbatical. He did it without much enthusiasm but told me, “At least I’ll be able to teach them a thing or two about history they never heard in high school.”
He spent a lot of time at the department. One afternoon I stopped in to see him and ran into Peter Borzage. He was carrying a Roman bust in marble, some emperor or other. He smiled, put it down and hugged me like a long-lost brother. “It’s so good to see you, Jamie.”
“You too.” I hoped I sounded sincere.
“You have a bit of a tan.”
“Egypt changes a person, I guess.” I made myself smile. I wanted to say, “You’re still pink,” but I held my tongue.
“Can we have lunch? I want to hear all about it.”
“Another time, okay? I’m meeting Danilo.”
“Oh.” His disappointment was plain to see. “How about tomorrow, then?”
I had tried to discourage him every way I could think of short of actual rudeness. Fortunately, Professor Feld came around the corner just then. “Peter, don’t leave things lying around like that.”
Peter looked down at the bust. “It’s not ‘lying around.’ It’s—”
“Don’t argue with me. Get that upstairs now. And be careful with it.”
Peter blushed, picked it up and rushed off. I never thought the day would come when I’d be happy to see Feld.
He turned on me. “Aren’t you on a leave of absence, Dunn?”
I smiled and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“A leave of absence isn’t a quarantine, Professor.”
“I’d watch that attitude.”
I decided to toy with him. “This is just a guess, but your wife nags you a lot, doesn’t she?”
He glared at me and stomped off.
Danilo wasn’t in his office. I thought he might be downstairs. But as I descended the steps to the sub-basements, I heard something odd. Piano music. A Chopin waltz. I recognized it—it was me playing. He must have recorded some of my practices without my realizing it. Not that I cared, but I found it strange. It was coming, I realized, from the deepest basement. Something made me stop and wait on the stairs. What could Danilo be doing there, with me to serenade him?
I heard someone behind me. It was Feld. He was looking past me, down to the sub-basement, looking unhappy as usual. “What is going on down there?”
I made my face blank. “It sounds like music, doesn’t it?”
He took a step downward, then seemed to think better of it. “Professor Semenkaru has the oddest habits.”
“You can’t imagine.”
“That music is echoing up the staircase. You can hear it all over the building. I have some restoration work to begin on that bust of Nerva, and all I can hear is that.”
“It’s not that loud.”
“I say it is. I’m going to go down there and—”
“I wouldn’t.” I said it as firmly as I could.
“Are you attempting to give me an order?”
“No, I’m attempting to keep you from doing something you’ll regret.” I had been flippant with him before, but I had never talked to him with such authority. Egypt had changed me, all right.
He looked at me, obviously not knowing how to react. Slowly he turned and went back up, looking over his shoulder at me from time to time.
The D minor waltz came from below. I didn’t remember playing it at home, but I must have since Danilo had managed to record it. For a moment I listened. It was full of young enthusiasm, but I was playing too fast and my technique was suffering for it.
Not at all sure what to make of it, and not at all sure I wanted to know, just then, I turned and went back upstairs. Me, in that dark, awful place.
Peter was in one of the Greco-Roman galleries, standing before a sculpture of a discus thrower. It was quite beautiful; I’d noticed it myself often enough. He obviously thought he was alone. He reached up and touched it, caressed its foot. Then he leaned forward and kissed it. His fingers traced the line of the stone sandal.
I cleared my throat as tactfully as I could.
He turned, saw me, and blushed the most brilliant red. “Jamie! I—I—”
“It’s all right, Peter.” I smiled at him.
“I know what this must look like.”
“Yep.”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh.” I pretended to be disappointed. “Well, I’ll just leave you to whatever it is, then.”
“No, wait!”
I paused.
“Jamie, I’d really like to get together with you sometime.”
He was single-minded if nothing else. I forced myself not to sigh. “Danilo has a professional conference this weekend. Would you like to go out dancing?”
“Dancing?”
I nodded. “I’m not much on a dance floor, but—”
“You mean to a—a—”
“Yes, I guess I do. To a—a—” Why couldn’t I resist goading him?
“Someplace public?” He said the word as if it was the most distasteful one in the language.
“Well, yeah. It’s kind of hard to dance in a phone booth.”
“I was hoping we could just spend some time together. You know what I mean… get to know each other.”
I knew exactly what he meant, and I wanted no part of it. “I’ll have to let you know.”
“Oh.” His disappointment showed. “Well, then, could we maybe—”
“Look, Peter, I really have to get moving. Errands to run. You know.”
I left as quickly as I could. Absurd young man. There was really nothing I could say to him, besides that he was attractive. Talking to him was making me hungry.
* * *
It wasn’t just my musicianship that was repaired, it was my swimming. I spent time in the pool every day, and my body responded to the workouts better than it ever had, it seemed. The other jocks seemed not to know what to make of me. Though the specific words had never actually been mentioned in the news or anywhere else, it must have been fairly obvious to them all that Justin and I were… or had been… well, not the right kind for a sports program. Greg too, of course.
They weren’t exactly unfriendly, but no one seemed very glad to see me. And I usually found myself alone in the locker room. There were queers in sports. People knew. Good lord, how will the department ever recover its reputation? Sports builds character.
But after a week of twice-daily workouts, I unofficially broke the school record for the backstroke. Again, they seemed not to know what to make of it. They couldn’t have looked more puzzled if I’d sprouted fins and scales. But Coach Zielinski caught up with me in the locker room and told me it was time for me to start swimming meets again.
I toweled my hair. “I don’t know if I want to.”
H smiled a smile that looked rather forced, I thought. “Look, we all know what you’ve been through. That awful stuff with Wilton, the murders and all. But the team needs you. You’re almost good enough for the Olympics.”
I pulled on my Calvins. “Almost? Then why bother?”
His frustration showed. “You could win the state title.”
“I’m not sure I want it.”
It was a kind of blasphemy. I could see it in his face. “The team needs you, Dunn.”
I pointed out that I hadn’t heard a damn thing from any of them since the “unpleasantness” started. When he protested how busy everyone was, I told him I’d think about it. He shrugged, turned his back on me and walked away. I could just hear him telling this staff and the other swimmers about it. The fagboy thinks he’s special or something. Maybe everything he’s been through has made his mind crack. How could anyone not want a state title?
Swimming had become a way of self-expression for me, like music. Maybe it always had been, but I don’t think I quite realized it till then. I had swum in the Nile; I had swum where Antinous drowned. What was a state title?
The atmosphere turned even less cordial at the sports building after that. I was not one of them. Worse, I didn’t want to be one on them. Ultimate betrayal. Once, late at night, I found myself remembering my encounter with Greg there. And wondering how many more of them were like him or could be.
* * *
Greg. About a month later his lawyers exhausted all their appeals and he was extradited to Pittsburgh. It made me a bit nervous. He had escaped from the Pittsburgh holding facility once before.
One of his lawyers left a voicemail message for me. Greg wanted me to visit him. I went a bit numb.
I was to meet Danilo for lunch that day. He was in his office, reading and smiling. The journal with his piece on our archaic relief of the Kissing Kings had just been published. He handed it to me. My name was on it, under his, in slightly smaller type. He stood up and stretched. “Now we belong to the ages.”
I thumbed through the pages. “I’ll read it later.”
“There should be a copy in today’s’ mail for you, at home.”
“What did you say about us?”
“Jamie, it’s a scholarly article, not a love letter.”
“Really? I thought it was both.” He smacked me on the butt with the magazine. “Why don’t you ever listen to my music up here?”
This seemed to catch him off guard. “You mean… ?”
“I’ve heard it coming up from the basement, Danilo. Everyone has. Feld bitches about it nonstop. But I think he’s afraid of you.”
“Good.”
I hesitated. “Take me down there.”
He looked away from me. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Greg Wilton wants me to visit him in the county jail. If I can face him, I can face anything.”
Danilo turned thoughtfully. Quietly he said, “You know you’re a great deal stronger now. You break records. Greg can’t hurt you.”
“He’s behind bars. It’ll be like a scene in a Big House movie.”
“I’d prefer you not to go.”
“I think I have to.” I smiled, then stopped. “I’m aching to see what he thinks might happen between us.”
“Let’s get some lunch. I’ll take you downstairs later in the week.” He smiled. “All right?”
I could have gone down on my own of course. My curiosity was strong. But that was not the way Danilo wanted it, so I waited.
* * *
The county lockup. Cops, most of them overweight; civil servants in bad clothes and worse haircuts. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, I couldn’t quite decide what. Some combination of disinfectant, urine and… and what? Fear? Despair? Lust?
The building was old, Victorian. Massive stone walls, heavy steel everywhere. The electric lights were harsh. Sounds echoed. The kind of penal facility they don’t build anymore.
The visitors’ room was exactly what I expected. A row of little cubicles; chain-link fence separating prisoners from their company. I had told the D.A.’s office I was going. They tried to talk me out of it, but I had made up my mind. They told me to be careful what I said. If Greg’s lawyer was there, leave at once. I agreed to that. A guard pointed to a cubicle and told me to sit and wait. I sat and waited.
Greg was in slate grey overalls. I was expecting handcuffs but there were none. He walked breezily up to his side of the barrier and sat down, one leg propped over the back of his chair. “Little Jamie.” He said it with a sneer.
I smiled. “Little free Jamie.”
“You look good. Travel agrees with you.”
“How do you know about that?”
“You know. lawyers. They like to gossip. Are you still fucking that old man?”
“Let me understand this. You asked me here so you could bore me to death?”
“I have a job to finish.” He grinned.
I got up to leave. “I’ll just be going then.”
“Stop.”
I looked at him through the wire. “A jailbird trying to give a free man orders. That’s good.”
“Don’t you want to know why I asked you to come down here?”
“I’m quivering with curiosity.”
He leaned forward and put his fingers through the chain-link. “I want to know what you are. You and your professor ‘friend.’”
I sat down again, spread my arms and looked puzzled. “As you see.”
He lowered his voice. “I killed you. I stabbed you in the throat, like that other little cocksucker.”
“Would you repeat that a little louder? The police officers didn’t hear.”
He hissed. “You should be dead. Or dying. Instead you went off on a world tour.”
“And you’re behind bars. Isn’t life funny?”
“Why isn’t there a scar, at least? I cut your goddamn throat.” He pushed at the barrier. “I want to know what you are.”
“What were the words you used that night? Pansy. Fagboy. That’s me.”
Suddenly he jumped to his feet and pounded on the wire screen. It held. But I sprang up and backed away. A cop came and slammed the barrier with his nightstick. Greg sat down and became quiet. I looked to the cop.
He yawned. “Maybe you ought to leave. You’re upsetting him.”
“I’m upsetting him?!?” I couldn’t believe I was hearing it.
“You should have seen him on the court. He was one of the best.”
“Yeah, and sports builds character.”
He smiled. I understood. “Right.”
From the other side of the screen, Greg said softly, “Look, Dunn, please, we need to talk. I’m sorry about that.”
I told the cop it would be okay, and he went back to his post. Warily I sat down. And glared at Greg. “All right, what? And make it good.”
“What are you going to say at the trial?”
“Why Greg, it’s not till next fall. I haven’t given it a bit of thought.” It was fun teasing him, it really was.
“Are you going to tell them… are you going to tell them about Justin and me? There’s been talk, but nobody knows for sure. Except you.”
I dumbed myself down. “What on earth do you mean? What is there to tell?”
He was getting pissed again. “So, help me, I should have killed you, you goddamn little queer. I don’t know why you’re not dead.”
“All right let me get this straight. You’re a cold-blooded killer. You slaughtered the guy you said you loved. And it’s okay for people to know that you killed him, but not that you loved him.”
He jumped up and tore at the barrier again. And again it held.
I recoiled a bit, then recovered my composure. “Well that answers that. I think I’ll be going now, Greg.”
“No, I’m not through with you.”
I got to my feet. “Have a nice day.” And I ambled off to the entrance. The cop scowled at me in what I thought was an especially unfriendly way.
* * *
Nighttime. Danilo and I walked about the campus, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not. There was snow in the air, large drifting flakes. It was not heavy, not yet, but it promised to turn into a storm. Academic Tower, floodlit as it always was at night, soared into the sky and vanished in the snowy night.
Danilo was preoccupied. I let him lead the talk. “Have you ever read E.E. Cummings?”
I told him I hadn’t. “Was he…?”
“No, but he was a good poet. He wrote that summer is a lie.”
“Wise man.” I wasn’t quite sure if I meant Cummings or Danilo.
“Dead man. Winter and night are permanent for him.”
It was a disturbing thought. “Danilo, what are you saying?”
“Only that I envy him. I don’t suppose you’ve read Sappho, either?”
I shook my head.
“She said that the gods considered death the greatest evil, but that was only because they don’t die themselves.”
His mood and his talk were upsetting me, more and more. It was only too clear what he had on his mind.
We walked for a while more, across the bridge that spanned the hollow, to the park where Tim and I had gone together, my first day on campus. There was a stand of young trees, all quite barren of course, black branches scraping the air. A layer of snow was beginning to cover the ground; it scattered enough light for the night not to be dark. Danilo caught hold of a tree and swung himself around it like a schoolboy, or a lover in an old movie.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jamie. You’re thinking this scene could have been directed by George Cukor or Edmund Goulding.”
I laughed. “‘Women’s directors.’ You know me too well.”
“They had their truth, as we have ours. And they all intersect, don’t they?”
This lost me. I asked what he meant.
“If anything should happen to me…” He left the sentence unfinished but reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small brass key on a silver chain and handed it to me. “To my private storage vault. The address is on the key tag. They have your name there. You will have access.”
I looked at the key as if it was the most unpleasant object in the world. “Danilo, what could happen to you? You’ve survived so much. You’ve survived everything in the world.”
“Feld has definitely been sniffing around the sub-basements. I think he’s been telling people what he found there.”
“Stop him.”
“I think it is too late. He might have told everyone.”
“Then move whatever is there.”
“He had a camera.”
“Oh.” A wave of numbness was coming over me. Or of fear. I wasn’t sure I knew the difference.
“Once they connect me to the killings, they’ll release Wilton.”
“No!”
“Be on your guard.”
The snow was coming down much more heavily. “Danilo, you can’t leave me.”
“For a time. Only for a time, Jamie.”
“There’s too much I don’t understand yet. About you. About myself.”
“You will learn.”
He kissed me, the most passionate kiss ever. I realized I was crying.
“Come with me now, Jamie.” He took my hand and we began to walk, across the bridge and back to the campus.
“Where are we going?”
“To the museum. I still have time to teach you more.”
We walked. I pressed myself close against him, so there was no place for him to put his arm except around me. A snowflake stuck to my eyelash and I brushed it aside. There was no more talk as we walked.
The building was dark. Danilo unlocked the main door, heavy bronze, and let us in. He switched on all the lights. The museum blazed.
“Shouldn’t we be more careful?”
Instead of answering, he took my hand and led me to the descending staircase. “Come along.”
At the first level we stopped. He turned on the lights there and went directly to the vault. The combination lock seemed to fly under his fingers. The heavy steel door swung open. Danilo reached in and took out a small parcel wrapped in cloth. He placed it firmly in my hand. “Open it.”
I looked at him, then at the package in my hand. “What is it?”
“Open it.” He smiled gently. “I had envisioned this moment happening somewhere beautiful, outdoors, perhaps in a glorious sunset, not on a winter night in the basement of a deserted building by artificial light. But the moment has come.”
It was a small pained box. I knew the style; it was from New Kingdom Egypt. Slowly, carefully I removed the lid. Inside were two gold rings. Each had a flat bezel covered with hieroglyphs in cartouches. I squinted and could barely decipher the names: Akhenaten and Smenkhare.
Danilo took my hand. “They were my father’s last gift to me.”
My head was spinning. If I were a heroine in an old movie I’d have batted my eyes and said something like, “But this is so unexpected.” Instead I felt my jaw drop open. I stammered like a fool. “D-danilo.”
Wordlessly he took the Smenkhare ring from the box and placed it on my finger. I looked at him and realized I was shaking. In all my dreams I had never thought… I kissed him then took the other ring and slid it onto his finger. He said something softly in the language of the ancient world. I knew enough to understand the words. “With this ring, I marry you.”
We held each other for a long time without moving. Outside, the storm was picking up, and we could hear the howling wind.
“Now, Jamie, come downstairs with me.”
Again, I realized I was trembling. I had had time enough to think what must be down there. But I had to see.
Down. Memories of that other time down there began to take hold of me.
Second sub-basement. I was shaking.
Third. Danilo put an arm around me. “You are a master now. Don’t be afraid.”
And then we were there.
The lights were dim. We followed the corridor to the place where the walls widened. And I saw them.
Stacked up in corners, propped against walls. The missing men, more than a dozen of them. They were all naked, every one of them, and they were pale. Corpses piled everywhere. I had expected it; none the less I was a bit shocked.
“Danilo, you… you… this…” I didn’t quite know what I wanted to say.
He clapped his hands. Abruptly they opened their eyes. Blinking, they turned their heads to us. Among them I recognized Josh Mariatta, who had been missing since I first came to school.
“Why are they here, Danilo?”
“Proof against hunger and thirst.” He laughed a bit. “My own private organ bank, if you like.”
He clapped again and they got unsteadily to their feet.
I crossed to Josh and planted myself in front of him. He blinked. Something made me touch him. I held up a hand and pressed a fingertip to his cheek. The pressure seemed too much for him; he staggered backward into the wall. But he looked at me and his lips formed my name. “Jamie.” The others repeated it, a chorus of rasping echoes.
I turned to Danilo.
He moved behind me and put his arms around me. “This is only a fragment of the power you may wield.”
“They’re dead.”
“No. They possess death, but it is in life. Or they are alive in death. As you prefer. I chose them because they were used to this condition, in their way. You—we—may compel them to do anything.”
He held me more tightly.
“And the ones who turned up dead after being missing?”
“I had used them up.”
From somewhere in the air around us, music began. Piano music, the Chopin funeral march. It was me playing. I turned and looked into Danilo’s eyes.
“Yes, Jamie, this is you. It is part of me. I can summon it whenever I need to. I can fill the air with it.”
He pulled me back against a wall. The living-dead-men moved. Each of them took another in his arms and they began to dance. Slowly, intimately they danced. After a few measures they kissed.
The music turned into an agitated waltz. They began to fondle one another, there in front of us. They kissed deeply, and then they began to make love. Athletes, artists, students, their bodies were beautiful and they touched in the most sensuous way. They danced and made love to the music.
“Look at them, Jamie. I have given them the freedom they never had the courage to take for themselves.”
I watched as one by one they reached climax in one another. Slowly the music died. They looked to Danilo and me.
“Go back to your sleep now.”
They did. Yawning, stretching, they went back to the places where they had been before, some alone, some on top of others. And they were still again.
Danilo led me back upstairs. “They are yours now. My wedding gifts. Do with them what you will.”
“Anything I want?”
“Anything. Free them, slaughter them, copulate with him, drink their blood. But survive. Compel them to do your will. With men like them it hardly matters. There are certainly enough of them. You may always master more of them.”
I hesitated. “Let’s go home now. I want to go home.” I kissed him.
Suddenly Peter Borzage was there, staring at us, or rather glaring. “I knew it. I knew you two were… ” The word lovers seemed to stick in his throat.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “We are.”
“You and this old man. Professor Feld said he thought so.”
“Older than you think. And Feld is a fool, Peter.” I took a step toward him. “Besides, he doesn’t do a thing to me that you don’t want to.”
“No! I’m not like that!”
“You are, Peter. Admit it.”
“I’ll report you to the administration. We will. There are rules, guidelines.”
“Not for us.” A step closer. “We survive, and we will prevail any way we can”
He was beginning to look a bit frightened. “What you’re doing is a sin.”
“Peter, you don’t know the half of it.” I reached out and caught him by the throat. There was no knife I could use. I bit into his carotid artery, tearing it. He died quickly enough. And he was delicious. Soaked in his blood, covered with bits of his flesh Danilo and I made love there on the museum floor.
I wanted to clean up what was left of Peter, but Danilo insisted we leave him where he was.
* * *
The ending was ironic. And perfect. Feld had shown the police photos of the bodies. Feld was now the suspect in the disappearances which, the police decided, must be separate crimes from the killings. Peter Borzage had been his assistant. Feld must have been trying to divert suspicion from himself. He was indicted and released on bail. It gave us both a lot of enjoyment.
* * *
Several nights had passed. It was clear and cold, snow covered the ground, and there was a bright crescent moon, its face pale with earthlight. Danilo was standing at the front window, watching it.
His mood had grown steadily darker for days. The thought of losing him, of being alone in the world again, had me almost frantic. But I didn’t know what to do.
He was looking old, and so was I. He suggested we go out for a walk. I knew the real purpose.
“Not here, Danilo. Not in town. We can’t. They’ll know.”
But he insisted.
And it was plain how hungry we both were.
The night was frigid, arctic. Our breath was heavy smoke. The air stung. Danilo took my gloved hand in his. We did not talk much. I only had one thing on my mind—him, how much I wanted him. What was there I could say? Inside my glove I felt the golden ring on my finger.
The campus was lit brightly, as always. Academic Tower soared into the night sky, floodlit. There were couples and groups of students, of faculty, crowding the streets, talking and laughing. Traffic was heavy. I wondered briefly why they weren’t all at home, sheltering from the cold. One more reason to feel apart from them all.
The museum was dark. We walked in a circle around it. In an alley at the rear, we stopped to kiss.
Farther up the alley, someone stirred. Whoever it was was hiding in the shadows. Danilo called, “Who is there?”
“Who are you?” It was a young man’s voice.
We walked a few steps into the alley. He was under a sheet of cardboard, lying on an exhaust vent, trying to keep warm. A slight bit of moonlight showed us he was in rags. A street kid. He stood up, looking afraid. Danilo asked him what he was doing there.
“Sleeping. What’s it look like?”
“You shouldn’t be here. This is private property. The guards will be around.”
“I didn’t know.”
I got close enough to get a look at him. He was young, maybe 16, not much more. “You should be at a shelter.”
“No. They won’t take kids like me.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. The cold was making him shake. “You want a blowjob?”
I suppose I should have expected that, but it caught me off guard. “What?”
“20.” He looked from one of us to the other. “Each.”
“No thanks.” I thought if he had better clothes and a haircut he’d be attractive.
“So, you’re… ?” Danilo made a twisted gesture.
“No. I’m no fag.”
“Oh.” Danilo looked at me from a corner of his eye and smiled.
I wasn’t at all sure I wanted it to happen. I got between them. “What’s your name?”
“Jonas.”
“Jonas what?”
“We doin’ business, or are you gonna fuck off?”
Danilo stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Business.”
“Forty. Up front.”
“You’re cute.” Danilo smiled gently as he said it. “Jonas.”
The kid seemed to relax a bit. I saw the knife come out from Danilo’s pocket. He should not have been doing it there, not in town. The police would—
The kid saw the knife and screamed. Suddenly there were lights everywhere around us. Three cops appeared; I couldn’t tell from where. They had their guns drawn, and they began firing.
Danilo was hit. Then again, and again. I saw him stagger back a step, then straighten up. He cried “Stop!” His shout was loud, almost deafening. It startled even me.
It seemed to hit the cops and the kid like a battering ram. They froze, standing in place.
He turned to me. “You see, Jamie. I can’t stay here. They’ll watch everything I do. There are too many of them.”
“Danilo, no, don’t!”
I saw him bend down, as if he was curling himself into a ball. When he straightened up again he had changed. He was the creature I had seen at the Great Pyramid, a falcon-headed man, eight feet tall. I could almost feel the power in his muscles, in his wings.
“Jamie, I love you. And I will be back.”
He spread his arms, and his wings were 20 feet across. With a terrifying cry he rose into the night air and flew off into the night. By moonlight I saw him circle Academic Tower. He crossed the face of the moon. Then he was gone.
It had happened too quickly for me to know how to react. He was gone. I pulled off my glove and pressed my lips to his ring. Then, not much caring about the others, who were still standing rigidly where he had left them, I turned and went slowly home. To my apartment, not his.
Next morning the news was filled with stories about three city policemen and a boy who was working as a decoy for them found frozen alive in the alley behind the museum. I suppose I could have brought them out of Danilo’s trance. I suppose I should have. But I didn’t much care.
* * *
A few days later there was still no sign of him. I lived in my own little apartment and stared at his place across the street, feeling the way Moses must have when he saw the Promised Land, knowing he’d never live to reach it.
I found myself revisiting places we had been together, the park, even the Z, alone. The cold didn’t bother me much.
I went to the museum. A prominently posted notice announced that Professor Semenkaru’s classes had been canceled due to his unexplained disappearance. The exhibits all seemed strange to me, though I’d seen them a hundred times. Mummies, sculptures, papyri… Danilo had touched them all.
There were other students walking about, making notes for their classes. I needed to be alone. Impulsively I went down to the sub-basements. The floor where Danilo and I had worked that first day was quite empty.. The walls were cold.
Then at the fourth sub-level I felt warmth, just a bit. Traces of Danilo still in the air? I decided to stay there a while and followed the corridor to the place where it widened. My footsteps echoed loudly on the flagstones. Nothing there could hurt me now.
It dawned on me, belatedly, that the lights were already on. When I reached the end of the corridor, Feld was sitting there on the stone floor, in a corner, hands covering his face. He looked up at me. The place was otherwise empty. There were no corpses.
“Where are they?”
I waved my hand in a little mock salute. “Professor Feld.”
“They were here. I gave photos to the police.”
I put on the least sincere grin I could manage. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“Semenkaru. He was the villain. I always knew it. Are you so stupid you didn’t?”
“Professor Semenkaru. Let’s show a little respect.”
“He was an evil thing. He would have seduced you into it too, sooner or later.”
I crossed the open space to him and stood at his feet. “Yes, he would have taught me a great deal, if you hadn’t interfered. He’d still be here.”
“You knew what he was?” He looked up at me.
“He was warm and handsome.”
“He was filthy with sin.”
I had had enough of this. “And now the police suspect you of his crimes. What did you do to Peter Borzage?” I decided to tease him.
“Nothing, I—”
“He was your assistant.”
“I—”
“If I had planned it, I couldn’t have imagined a nicer repayment.”
This seemed to strike him unexpectedly. “You mean you were—”
Slowly, I nodded. My smile became even wider. “You drove away the man I loved.”
For the first time he began to look a bit concerned. His eyes widened. He tried to get to his feet. “I knew he was like that. I thought you might be.” I kicked him firmly and he got down again. “But I never thought you were actually… There are rules about that.”
“We broke them. Shattered them.”
“Then you—”
Something like genuine fear was creeping into his face. I confess it gave me a little buzz. “Yes.” I mimicked him. “Then I—”
He tried to get up again, and again I kicked him. He stumbled and fell into a corner. I crossed to him and kicked him still again, as hard as I could. He cried out. Slowly, softly, the sound of the Chopin C Minor nocturne began to fill the air. He looked around frantically, trying to see where it was coming from.
I squatted down beside him. “What’s wrong, Professor? Don’t you like classical?”
“Let me out of here.”
“You were a lot more interesting when you used to try and give me orders. Begging doesn’t become you.”
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”
I kicked him again, in the side of his head. “Goddamned self-righteous interfering bastard! You drove away the man I love. You meddled in my relationship instead of staying out of it. You tell me—what should I do to you?”
“The police…”
“The police suspect you, now. Even in Danilo’s disappearance. The news this morning said so.”
“I know.” He was whimpering. “I thought he might be down here.”
“He’s gone.”
He seemed to brace himself for another kick. But I took a few steps back away from him. He looked around anxiously, gauging the chance he might get away. But there was no way that could happen.
“Do you know the history of this building, Professor?”
“What?” My question couldn’t have been more unexpected. “I—I—”
“Did you know it used to be part of the Underground Railroad?”
He seemed to go numb. At any rate he didn’t answer me.
“There are all kinds of nooks and recesses and hidey-holes.”
Nothing, no response. Did he know what was coming?
I let out a loud shout, like the one Danilo had shouted just before he left. From their places of concealment came the dead-alive. Feld’s face was, to my enormous pleasure, filled with the most pathetic fear. They fell on him and began tearing. And eating. In a few minutes there was nothing left but his bones. In a few minutes more even they were gone.