Iblis’ Affliction

by Nero Seal

  “Easy, Master…” Slater hissed, jerking him upright. Before Talha understood what was going on, his arm wound around Slater’s shoulder.

  In a heartbeat, his fighting spirit evaporated as all his attention concentrated on the simple task of walking. The dark gray carpet of the corridor changed into the Persian carpets of his bedroom. The room swirled before his eyes, and the mattress bounced under his back before swallowing his weight with blissful softness.

  “You reek!” Slater said, and Talha wondered if he heard irritation in his voice.

  “You reek!” Talha couldn’t say why he snarled it back, but he was too tired to analyze himself. With a flick of his wrist, he dismissed Slater. “Go away!”

  “Master is acting ridiculous.” Slater’s hands seized his collar and unfastened the top button.

  “Yeah? Slaughter me for it…” Two angry hands ripped his shirt open, and Talha thought he sobered up enough to have a serious, man to man conversation. “I asked myself why, and you know why?”

  “Why what, Master?”

  “Why this is…” Talha twirled his index finger in the air, trying to remember what he wanted to say, but lost his thought. Instead, his palm cupped the side of Slater’s face. “Who could say this face belongs to a monster…”

  His thumb outlined Slater’s cheekbone, brushed against his lips, pulling the bottom one down.

  “With such a beautiful face you could have been an actor or a model. You are smarter than you try to appear. You could have been anyone. Instead, you became my curse…”

  Talha laughed, staring into the dilated pupils. The softening line of Slater’s mouth stretched his face in a stupidly-surprised grimace.

  “I can’t even kill you, no matter how much you annoy me. I have been thinking about it all night, and I realized something…” He groaned, scrunched his face, then said, “Wait, I think I’m gonna puke…” Nausea passed. Talha raised his hand in the air. “No, I’m good.”

  “Master realized something?” Slater’s ears twitched, straining his facial muscles.

  “I did? What was it?”

  “You just said it…”

  “Ohhh… Yeah…” Talha rubbed his tired eye, looking at Slater with only the left one open. “I don’t have the right to kill you, because I don’t think you have ever had a choice about what you became… Some bastard stole your life and made you… this.” He pointed at Slater. “Death with an angel face. I wish I know who did this to you. All those scars… I wonder if you have ever been treated normally? How can I kill someone who had never been given a chance to live a normal life? You could have a beautiful wife, lots of kids, you know?”

  “Slater doesn’t like women or kids.” A weird expression crossed Slater’s face. Talha’s drunken mind was unable to identify it. But it looked like a twisted amusement.

  “A man? Whatever, I don’t wanna know…” Talha shook his head. “Tonight, when I’ve been with Aylín, I finally realized why I met you. Because I’m the only one who is right for you. Not a sick psycho who tells you to slaughter women and children, not some sick sadist who enjoys doing this…” He stretched out his hand and tugged down the collar of Slater’s gray t-shirt, having a glimpse at the white rash of old cigarette burns. “You need to be given a chance. And, maybe, for everything I’ve done, I have to pay. You are my punishment, my curse because I’m not sure you will ever appreciate what I offer you. However, I have decided to try anyway… as long as you give me the chance.”

  Slater opened his mouth, then closed it. Licking his lips, he swallowed. With his eyes glossy and deep, decorated with long black lashes Slater looked young. Too young to be a monster. This could have been Ejder…

  “Go and sleep, Slater. Master is tired.”

  “Slater stays here…” A hoarse voice lacked the liquid intonation, but Talha was too tired to look for a meaning in it.

  “Whatever you please.” He flicked his wrist in the air again, and closed his eyes, welcoming the heavy wave of sleep.

  That night, Talha dreamed about Slater tugging off his pants, then his trunks. Face red, he positioned himself between Talha’s legs and commented, “You reek of a woman…”

  “Sorry, I’ll take a shower.” Talha frowned, tried to get up, but Slater’s strong hand, pressing against his chest, pinned him down.

  “It’s okay, Master. Slater doesn’t mind.”

  Then Talha dreamed about the hot softness of Slater’s mouth and a sweet tingling sensation in his groin, foretelling his building orgasm. Slater, suddenly naked, straddled him. Moving his hips, he lowered himself over Talha’s length with a painful hiss.

  Talha forgot how to breathe, mesmerized, as every muscle in Slater’s body, following silent music, moved in a wild rhythm of an entrancing dance. Unable to tear his gaze away, he drunk Slater in. He seized strong hips. The flesh under his fingers whitened as his tongue buzzed with a desire to lean closer and taste Slater’s sultry skin.

  Face red, lips parted, Slater slanted to the side, grabbed a cigarette pack and a lighter. Talha couldn’t say where they came from as he didn’t smoke cigarettes, but as in any dream, events didn’t have to be logical. Slater sucked in acrid smoke, held it inside, and a bliss relaxed his facial muscles. His nostrils emitted a heavy rush of smoke, and Talha couldn’t help but joke, “I thought Iblīs was made of smokeless fire.”

  Slater chuckled, looking down at him with something similar to affection. His lips stretched in a wicked smile, and the mood changed. Grabbing Talha’s hand, Slater shoved a cigarette between Talha’s fingers, then guided his hand toward his chest, crushing the smoldering tip against his own skin.

  “No, what are you doing?” Talha cringed as his chest contracted with empathic pain.

  “It’s okay. Master misunderstood. Slater wants it. Slater loves it.”

  Talha tried to tear his hand away, but Slater’s iron grip held his hand until the skin sizzled.

  Gathering all his strength, Talha forced his hand out of Slater’s grip and crushed the cigarette in his fist. The dream changed its course once again, and now he was holding Slater’s body in his arms, kissing and licking the salty burn, until the darkness swallowed them both.

  TALHA JERKED UPRIGHT, gasping for air. The unsettling sound and the disgusting smell of burning skin wrenched his stomach.

  “Fuck this dream…” he breathed the exact moment the door to his room flew open, and Ejder’s face whitened.

  “Abi? What the hell is going on?”

  Following his gaze, Talha faced the other side of his bed, where the naked frame of Slater sprawled on the crumpled linens. Slowly, as if still in a dream, Talha raised his palm where the cigarette burn marked his skin. “Fuck my life…”

  “I SAID, I DON’T KNOW how it happened!” Talha snapped at Ejder. Sitting on a brown and white cowhide sofa, Talha shoved a morning paper off a dark wood coffee table to the black wooden floor. Grabbing a jar of weed from the shelf behind his back, he hurriedly rolled up a joint dying with the need to calm his nerves. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. It was a drunken mistake and will not happen again.”

  He shook his head, thrusting the thoughts about last night out of his mind, but gut-wrenching nausea clutched his stomach.

  “Ugh, fuck. I’m gonna puke…” he groaned, clasping his mouth with his free hand then demanded, “Give me something! My head is killing me.”

  “Is Master unwell?” Talha cringed as Slater’s voice scratched his ears. He hadn’t heard the door to his office open, and still naked, Slater made his way in.

  Talha’s eyes fixed on the round, angry-red burn glowing on Slater’s chest, then slipped down to the red soaked bandage and the blue bruises from his grip that decorated Slater’s hips. Guilt, regret, confusion, and anger joined in a soul-destroying conflagration. Unable to deal with it, he pointed to the door. “You. Get the fuck out and stay in the bedroom, or I swear to God, I’ll kill you! I don’t know what happened last night, but I don’t want to discuss it. Is it clear?”


  “Is Master mad?” Slater cocked his head.

  “Mad? I’m fucking furious!”

  “Why?” Slater’s head snapped to the other side.

  “You…” Darkness swallowed the corners of Talha’s vision as the need to regain control overwhelmed. Fists itching to smash this beautiful face bloody, he crushed the joint in his hand, got up, and stepped forward, but caught the surprised, curious gaze of his younger brother. Ejder looked entertained, rather than worried. Not willing to amuse him, Talha leashed his feelings and said as clear as possible, “Stay in the room and wait for the doctor. I can’t deal with you right now. We will talk later.”

  Slater’s face paled, eyes frosted over, lips disappeared in a white slash as he straightened up and raised his chin. “As you please, Master.”

  Slater strolled away, and Ejder gasped. “WOW! Have you seen his back?”

  “Ejder!” Talha warned, but the words didn’t seem to disturb Slater.

  Watching the ripper approach the door and slip into the corridor, Talha expected the all-consuming shame to lift from his chest, but instead, it aggravated.

  “What are you going to do, Abi?”

  “I don’t know…” Talha automatically replied, giving in to despair for a second. Slater’s appearance robbed him of the desire to smoke, and he tossed the crumpled joint on the table.

  “You slept with a man.”

  “Really? Thank you, I wouldn’t have noticed without your help. Ugh, Ejder! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Succumbing to the rage, Talha kicked the table. His toes collided with the edge of the table leg, and Talha hissed as all his nerves shrieked in agony. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  “If people knew, they wouldn’t only stop following you, they would kill you, ya know?”

  “Then fucking keep your mouth shut!” Talha yelled, then pushed the air out of his lungs, trying to calm down. Hammers of pain pounding in his brain, he said, “Remove everybody from the house until I sort it all out. Arrange a doctor for him. If he has any kind of diseases, I want to know. Stay at your girlfriend’s for now. If he kills me, kill him, then return to Mardin. He won’t let those who know who he is live.”

  Ejder didn’t listen. His eyes lit up with mischief. “How did it feel? Did you… or did he…”

  Unable to believe his ears, Talha felt as if the blood vessels in his brain burst. “Are you for real? Get the fuck out!”

  “It’s only as serious as you let it be, Abi. So what if you fucked his ass. Shit happens!” He giggled, happy with his joke, but Talha didn’t listen. Grabbing Ejder’s arm, he dragged him to the door and shoved him out of the office.

  “Ugh! Unbelievable!”

  HIS HOUSE EMPTIED within half an hour. No footfalls, no rustles of long abayas sounded in the air; dead silence fell over his never sleeping mansion. Talha’s neurotic fingers tapped the polished wood of the armrest as he rested against the soft leather of the cowhide sofa. Holding the morning paper in his other hand, he tried to concentrate on reading, but the meaning eluded him. When he was about to give up, a soft knocking reached his ears a second before the door creaked open.

  Serious brown eyes fixed on Talha’s face from behind thin silver glasses as the middle-aged doctor gave him a quick nod and a ghost of a smile. Even on hot summer days like this, the doctor wore a dark blue suit; the same blue bloomed on his forehead as a prayer mark. Closing the door behind his back, he clasped his hands in front of his hips. “No one answered the door, so I let myself in. Is everything alright, Reis?”

  “Yes, everything is fine, Miraç. Come on in.” Tossing the paper to the coffee table, Talha got up, straightened his black button-up shirt, before offering the doctor his hand. “You know why you’re here?”

  “Yes, Reis.” Soft, velvet notes in Miraç’s calm voice wrapped around Talha, releasing the tension from his shoulders. The doctor’s glasses flared green as he gave Talha a firm nod. “Ejder updated me. You want a whole body check-up of your new asset.”

  Calm and controlled, Miraç feared no one but Allah, and Talha thought that if anyone could deal with Slater, it would be him. The peaceful aura around Miraç never failed to make people relax and instantly trust him. “The second door on the left. I’m not sure how I’m going to use him yet, but if he has any kind of diseases, I would like to know.”

  “Yes, Reis.” Turning on his heel, the doctor opened the door, picked up a beige medical chest, which stood behind, and disappeared from view. His quiet footfalls moved away, until the sound of the door being opened and closed completely muffled them out.

  Leaning against the wooden surface of the windowsill, Talha watched the white featherlike clouds rush toward the horizon. The blinding sun hurt his eyes, yet he couldn’t look away from the endless sky. The pressure of waiting weighed him down, as he strained his ears for any sounds from Slater’s room. Fifteen minutes stretched into eternity, exhausting his patience. He was about to follow Miraç, when the soft click of a closing door disturbed the quiet. Talha pushed himself off the windowsill, facing the noise.

  Putting the medical chest on the floor in the corridor, Miraç entered the room, and after glancing in the direction he had come from, he shut the door. Brushing his salt and pepper hair off his forehead with a casual hand, the doctor offered Talha a tight smile.

  “I changed his bandages and left him antibiotics. Though the wound isn’t dangerous and is healing well, he should rest for at least another week. I took some blood samples as well.” The doctor’s masculine features tightened as his eyes searched the ceiling, then the floor, before reaching Talha’s face again. “I was unable to collect all the samples for STDs as Ejder requested.”

  The doctor cleared his throat, adjusting his blue tie.

  Talha frowned. “Why?”

  Miraç spread his arms, then lifted his shoulders. “Let me quote. ‘If you touch my ass, old man, I’ll cut off your hands and feed them to dogs. If Master wants to push fingers up my ass, Master should come and do it himself.’ I’m sorry, Reis, but he didn’t look like he was joking.”

  “Son of a bitch…” Blood, rushing to Talha’s head, made his vision murky. Pressure, pulsing in his temples and the back of his head, threatened to push his eyeballs out of their sockets. His fists clenched, teeth ground, as he stormed toward the door, but Miraç shifting left, blocked his way.

  “There is a reason why there are no people around today, is that right? I saw the autopsy reports of the Asani family, and I just saw a knife in the hands of your new ‘asset’, that could be the murder weapon. Please correct me if I’m making the wrong conclusions.”

  Talha said nothing, so Miraç continued, “If you allow me to give you a piece of advice, Reis, it would be ‘leave him alone for now and cool down’. Hot-headed decisions never brought anyone prosperity.”

  Staring into the dark, soft eyes, Talha felt painful pressure releasing in his jaw. Swallowing past the lumps in his throat, he jerked his cheek, reluctantly giving in. Miraç was right, as always, and his respect for the man grew stronger. Talha wasn’t someone to give in to his blind instincts. He knew better than anyone that pure violence never brought anyone anywhere, this was why he survived and prospered.

  “Why don’t you come with me? Let’s have lunch.” A firm palm, wrapping around Talha’s elbow, guided him out of the room and toward the staircase.

  “YOU HAVE BEEN MISSING for a week… Where have you been, Master?” Slater didn’t ask but demanded his reply.

  Standing in the kitchen by a sizzling frying pan, Talha scrutinized the chopped parts of something that once might have been a bird, as he tried to collect his thoughts. Staying out of his own house had been stupid, but he couldn’t help it. All those days slamming balls deep into a pussy, Talha tried to cleanse himself of shame, guilt, and memories. He’d never been particularly homophobic, as he’d never cared about what anyone did as long as they didn’t cross his path, but that was before he’d slept with a man. He loved pussy and the softness of breasts. Never in h
is life had he desired to touch another man. Then why the hell did I get hard with Slater?

  Ejder was right. Things were as complicated as he let them be, except they weren’t. This wasn’t only about sex. Shaking off his emotional turbulence, Talha decided to forget the whole episode, blaming it on his drunken state and Slater’s weird behavior. What he couldn’t shrug off as easily, was the impact it could have on his life. Even knowing that Ejder would never stop teasing him about sleeping with a man, he was sure there would be no leak from his side. Slater, on the other hand, could kill him with one word.

  Slater’s question hung in the air, and Talha realized that a week wasn’t nearly enough for him to face the ripper and stay calm.

  “None of your business. Anyway, why are you cooking claws?” Talha pointed at a bird foot, then to the cooked, brownish head. “Is it a beak?”

  Instead of answering, Slater hissed, “Where is everybody, Master?”

  “They won’t be around for a while. Get used to it. If you don’t want to cook—eat out.”

  “Why, Master? Why only you and Slater? Is it a trap?”

  Talha almost choked on his saliva. Unable to tell if Slater was joking, he faced the reaper but met the dead-serious eyes and a strained, cautious pose. Slater backed to the wall, then lurked to the nearest window. With one jerky movement, he closed the blinds. Keeping away from openings, he curled his palm and tugged at a small loop that connected his middle finger to a wrist strap, ready to draw a needle out of its sheath.

  Does he think I want to put him down because we had a drunk fuck? Shaking his head, Talha said, “No, Slater. If I ever want to kill you, I’d do it with my own hands. I sent people away because I don’t know what to expect from you. I didn’t want you to slaughter everybody. Until I know what’s going on in your head, it will just be you and me here. Get used to cooking or starve—I don’t care.”

  Emitting a weird, high-pitched sound, Slater grinned. “Master is funny.” He took a plate and offered it to Talha. “Eat with me.”