CHAPTER 27
The shortest day of the year dawned bleak and gray, as if winter, sensing the eventual loosening of its grip on the world, was trying to obliterate the sun once and for all. The sky remained perpetually dark, clouds obscuring the heavens. Snow fell steadily. There was no hint that, soon, the periods of light would begin to lengthen by several minutes a day as the wheel of the year turned once more.
Stephen Darby didn’t know that it was the first official day of winter. Inside his house, a perpetual chill had taken hold many days earlier. In his kitchen, dishes were piled high in the sink. His bedroom floor was littered with discarded clothes. He had some time ago gotten down to his last pair of clean underwear, which he’d now been wearing for six days straight.
Had he bothered to look in a mirror, he wouldn’t have recognized himself. Although his bruises were mostly healed, his face hardly resembled the one he’d had before encountering Pete Thayer at the Paris Cinema. Where once he had been handsome, now he was haunted. His eyes were dull, his skin ashen. His hair, uncut and unwashed, hung limply over his forehead. His beard had grown in, covering his cheeks and chin with a patchy forest of reddish-brown.
When the phone rang, Stephen stared at it. It had been ringing a lot lately, but he generally ignored it. There was no one he wanted to hear from, no one who had anything to say to him that was of any importance. Even his family seemed to exist only in the distant past. He’d made a few calls to them, convinced them that he was busy with work and perhaps battling a slight case of the flu. His mother, thankfully, was preoccupied with her usual holiday plans, the undertaking of which outweighed her customary need to oversee every aspect of her son’s life. She had left him alone after extracting a promise from him to appear at her annual holiday party, to be held on December twenty-first.
The date was circled on the calendar that hung above Stephen’s desk, but it meant little to him. He wasn’t sure what day it was, nor did he care. Whenever he had begun to care, even a little, he had taken a couple of pills and retreated into the dull safety of their embrace. There, nothing mattered. He liked it that way.
Now he heard his mother’s voice emanating from the depths of the machine. “Stephen? It’s your mother. I wanted to remind you that the party is tonight. I want you here by seven o’clock. Oh, and don’t forget to bring a gift for the Secret Santa exchange.”
Secret Santa. Hearing the words, Stephen laughed. “Secret Santa,” he said out loud, enjoying the way the words felt on his tongue, the nonsensical sound of them when they were uttered. “Secret Santa,” he said again. “Secret Santa. Secret Santa. Secret Santa.”
He laughed again, loudly. What the fuck was a Secret Santa? What did it have to do with him? Nothing, he told himself. Absolutely nothing. It was just something his mother liked to say, another one of her endless, boring topics of conversation, like her perpetually sore back or Stephen’s inability to find a wife. Secret Santa. He wondered if she’d read about that in the goddamned Reader’s Digest.
He erased her message. If she wanted him to show up for her goddamned party, he would. Maybe he’d show up dressed exactly as he was, in stained underpants and an old T-shirt. Maybe he’d just walk in like that, a big fucking bow tied around his neck. “Merry Christmas, Mom,” he heard himself say. “Merry Fucking Christmas.”
He checked the computer screen again. Still nothing from HrdAtWrk. It had been two weeks, two long weeks since he’d heard from him. What was wrong, he wondered? What had he done to drive his master away? He’d been a good boy, hadn’t he? He’d done everything that was asked of him. He’d allowed his master to take out his rage on him, to use him the way he deserved to be used. Wasn’t that enough?
He lived in front of the computer. Not having heard from his dark lover, and forsaking all others, he’d resorted to searching the web for the next best thing. He’d discovered in his endless wandering several sites that had interested him, places where he could find images that recalled his times with his faceless tormentor. He sat for hours staring at pictures of men who, like him, deserved to be mistreated. He saw their bodies, bound and beaten, their faces twisted in pain as men stronger than they were used them for their pleasure.
These pictures had become the dreamscape of his life. Looking at them, he replaced the bodies of the men in them with his own, superimposed his features over theirs. Soon he was looking at himself, his own body bruised and broken as the man who now controlled his mind ordered him to degrade himself for his amusement. It was his wrists that were tied behind him as a stream of piss, hot and wicked, slashed across his face. It was his back covered in the welts of his master’s whip, his chest puckered with the brand of a white-hot iron that seared a mark of shame into his flesh.
He knew he should be ashamed of himself, ashamed of the thoughts that filled his head and the desires that ate at his soul. And he was ashamed. He had no right to exist in the world, at least not the world around him. He didn’t belong there. That world was for normal men, men who could hold their heads high and walk with pride. He was not one of those men. He was something small and frail, bent and twisted by a poison that ran through his veins and intoxicated him with its sweetness. He should, he knew, be strong enough to resist it, but he couldn’t. He was weak.
It was this poison that had befogged his mind and raised the voice that had told him to go to that place, that place where he’d allowed himself to be taken. It was this poison that made him half a man, incapable of wholeness. He had let it taint him, and now it was eating him alive.
He fumbled for the bottle on his desk. His fingers found it, knocking it over. The pills scattered across the surface of the desk, a rain of small blue tablets. The sound echoed loudly in his ears, and for a long horrible moment he saw the pills tumbling off of the desk and into nothingness. His heart stopped as he imagined the loss of them, and he pawed at the desk anxiously, trying to prevent the pills from running away from him like bugs from the light. He trapped them beneath his palm, where they lay still. When he was sure they wouldn’t scurry out of his reach, he lifted his hand and nervously scooped the pills back into the bottle.
He held the bottle up, measuring the remaining number. He sighed. There were enough to last him for some time. Unless . . . The thought returned to him. It had first come a few days before, interrupting his fantasies with its teasing voice. Unless . . . He’d ordered it away, terrified by its suggestion. But it had come back, wheedling and coaxing. Each time he screamed at it to shut up, it obliged, but only for a time. Now the periods of its silence were growing shorter and shorter, and it was growing stronger, more insistent.
Unless you take all of them.
He put his hands to his ears, trying to shut the voice out. But it came from within, and now that it had had its say, it felt its power. Unless you take all of them, it said again. All of them. All at once. Unless you take them all.
He shook his head. No, he wouldn’t listen to the voice. It lied. It had lied to him about the pleasures that awaited him in the theater. It had lied to him about the pleasures waiting for him in the arms of men. All it knew how to do was lie. He couldn’t trust it.
“Go away!” he shouted, trying to drown it out.
The voice laughed quietly. Not this time, it said. Not anymore. You believed me once. Believe me again.
“No!” Stephen yelled. He reached for the bottle, took three pills, and popped them into his mouth. His glass of Diet Coke was empty so he chewed, grinding the pills to powder beneath his teeth. The taste was foul, sharp, and metallic, but he didn’t stop. Producing some spit, he swallowed. The paste stuck in his throat and he coughed, bringing most of it back up. He swallowed again, harder, and the pills entered his system. He breathed more easily.
What are you waiting for?
Stephen looked up. He’d heard the voice of the dark man, the one he longed for. He looked around the room. Where was he?
What are you waiting for, faggot?
“Where are you?” he called out.
The room behind him was empty. He ran into the hall, peering into the darkness. It, too, was barren. His feet slipped on the wooden floor as he went from room to room, searching. Finally he ended up in the bedroom. The blinds were drawn against the pale light outside, and the sheets on the bed were a tangled nest. A stale smell emanated from them.
Why aren’t you on your knees, cocksucker?
Stephen turned around, searching wildly for the man who spoke to him. He found only shadows. Perhaps the man was hiding within them. Perhaps he would emerge to take Stephen in his hands, to use him as he needed to be used.
On your knees!
The voice was harsh, commanding. Stephen was forced to obey it. He dropped to his knees, landing on the floor with a sharp crack of bone on wood. Pain bit at him but he ignored it. He looked up hopefully, waiting.
What is it you want, faggot?
Stephen shook his head, unwilling to speak. He knew what he wanted, but he couldn’t say it.
Tell me what you want.
The voice bristled with anger. Stephen trembled, expecting at any moment to feel the slap of a hand across his face, the kick of a boot in his stomach. Anticipating it, he began to cry.
Laughter rang through the room. It came from all around him, mocking and jeering, echoing in his head. It was cruel, cold, and hard.
What a joke you are, the voice said, spitting the words at him. You’re not a man. You’re nothing. Nothing. You’re a worthless rag for me to wipe up my cum with.
The tears fell from Stephen’s eyes, dropping to the floor. He wiped at his eyes with his hands, trying to stanch the flow. He was disgracing himself, he knew.
Don’t bother trying, the voice said. You’re like all the rest of the faggots. Weak. Diseased. Good for nothing. Aren’t you?
Stephen shook his head. He was all those things. He was useless. He had no reason to deny it. The evidence was against him, and he knew it. Didn’t his body carry the proof of his weakness? Didn’t his mind contain the seeds of disease? Everything the voice said was true.
What am I going to do about you?
The voice spoke not to Stephen but to itself, as if his master was considering what punishment to dole out next. Stephen considered praying for mercy, begging for another chance to prove himself. But somehow he knew that point had been passed. He had failed miserably, and whatever his fate was to be, it was what he deserved.
Maybe I should have you go next door and tell your mother what you’ve been doing, the voice said thoughtfully.
“No,” Stephen whispered.
No? And why not? Shouldn’t she know what kind of son you really are? Shouldn’t she know what it is you dream about doing? Wouldn’t that make her happy?
“No,” Stephen said again. “Please, no.”
The voice laughed at him. Look at the little faggot, begging me not to tell his mommy what he really is. Why don’t you want her to know? Would she be disappointed in you? Would she be ashamed?
“Yes,” Stephen said, choking back a sob. “Yes.” He thought of his mother, seeing him on the floor of the Paris Cinema. He saw her eyes troubled with confusion, wondering what her baby boy was doing there, his pants around his feet, his shame on display for the whole world to see. No, he couldn’t let her know. She could never know.
Would it break their hearts? asked the voice, as if its owner had read Stephen’s thoughts. Would it kill them to know that their boy had become a cocksucker? That he wasn’t a real man?
It would kill them, Stephen thought hopelessly. It would destroy them. He’d always been the good son, the one who never caused any trouble. They had always told him how proud they were of him. But they wouldn’t be proud if they knew. They would think they had failed.
And you can’t be who you are, the voice reminded him. You can’t go on like this.
Again Stephen knew that the voice spoke the truth. He couldn’t live like this, always searching, always looking for men who would use him. He couldn’t stay in the shadows forever. Someday he would have to come out from the safety of the world he’d been living in, and then he would be revealed for what he was. Then it would all come crumbling down.
There is one way, the voice said, sounding for a moment like it truly cared about him. There is one thing you can do, one way to make sure they never find out.
Stephen looked down. Somehow the bottle of pills was in his fist. Had he carried it with him? Had he clung to it through everything? He didn’t remember doing so, but there it was. He shook the bottle and heard the reassuring rattle of the pills inside.
There are enough, the voice told him. More than enough.
Stephen sobbed. He was wracked with pain. His whole being ached. All he wanted was for it to stop.
Go on, faggot, the voice said, sounding more like the man he remembered. Do what I tell you. You’re good at that.
Stephen nodded, tears blinding him. He looked around the room and saw a glass sitting on the table beside his bed. He crawled toward it, unable to get to his feet. The weight of his burden was pressing down on him, unbelievably heavy. He felt it like a booted foot between his shoulder blades, crushing him to the floor.
He reached the glass and grabbed it. It was still half full. He took a sip. The soda inside was flat and warm, all life sapped from it. He had no idea how long it had been sitting there. He set the glass on the floor and opened the bottle of pills, dumping them into his hand. His fingers closed around the pile, holding it close.
In the other room the phone rang, startling him. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was seven o’clock. He knew the call was from his mother, wondering where he was.
Finish it, the voice said insistently. She’ll be here soon.
Yes, he thought, she would be there soon. When he didn’t answer, she would be there to see what was keeping him. Perhaps she would send his father or his brother. He was running out of time.
He opened his fist. The pills looked small and insignificant, like candy. He put half of them into his mouth.
Now swallow, faggot. Swallow like a good boy.
Stephen obeyed. He took a swig of the stale soda and let it carry the pills down his throat. He repeated the process again, swallowing the remainder of the pills. When they were down, he took another drink.
He didn’t feel any different, not at first. Then a warmth began to creep over him, a comforting blanket that shrouded him in darkness and quieted his heart. His eyes grew heavy. He heard the glass in his hand fall to the floor with a dull thud. He felt warmth against his leg.
Where was the man? Had he gone? Stephen looked around, trying to find him. He wanted to see him one last time, feel his touch. But where was he? Stephen felt alone, and for the first time he was frightened.
What’s wrong, fag?
The voice returned, nearer now. The man crouched behind him, just out of sight. Stephen tried to turn his head to see him, but found himself unable to move.
What’s the matter? Isn’t this what you wanted?
The voice was taunting him. He could see the man watching him, his mouth twisted into a cruel grin. He felt strong hands close around his throat, cutting off his air. He didn’t bother to fight. This was what he wanted. It was what he’d wanted when he’d gone into the darkness with the man at the theater. It was what he wanted now. It was what he deserved.
He closed his eyes and allowed his dark master to do what he would.