Dream Boy

by Jim Grimsley

  The shadow lingers in the vague doorway. The divided moment vanishes, converges.

  “I thought I saw somebody.”

  He can feel Roy searching, can feel his strain. They are fixed together, invisibly linked. Roy’s breath repeats itself along Nathan’s shoulders and neck. He pulls Nathan to him with sudden fervor, his arms encircling, and there is insistence in his body, taut like a wire, like when he first touched Nathan in the graveyard. For Nathan the feeling is like a wind, scouring, and Nathan finds himself echoing with the gust. Roy jerks him close, almost brutish, and the thing in the doorway watches, and now the thing resembles Dad even more, from when Dad was young and strong; and the feeling is like there is something tearing in Nathan. That Roy can hold him roughly, like this. That he can squeeze too tight. The presence of the thing in the doorway robs the moment of any tenderness. Roy turns Nathan around to face him, Nathan’s back is to the door, but he can still feel the thing watching. Roy says, “Don’t look. I don’t know what it is. But don’t look out there anymore.”

  The plaintive note to the voice reaches Nathan.

  They are together in the room. They are standing together, and Roy’s hands are insisting, his body is insisting. His mouth crawls along Nathan’s face and Nathan is tempted, for the first time, to push him away. There are eyes watching from all sides. Roy’s heart pounds beneath Nathan’s hand. Nathan sighs, and yields.

  The need leaves Roy’s body a little at a time, and it is almost as if Nathan erases the tension with his hands, squeezing it out through Roy’s shoulders. They are together, they run together a little, their edges softening and blending. At first, for Nathan, resistance and anger prevent any pleasure. But this is Roy, not Dad. They are here together, they are safe.

  Then, without a sign, Roy kneels in front of Nathan, and Nathan, dumbstruck, searches for his face in the shadows. Roy unfastens Nathan’s pants, lets them down.

  “What are you doing?”

  Roy’s hands slide along the backs of Nathan’s thighs. The touch burns through all Nathan’s nerves, as if his body senses a new intent. Roy slides his hands down Nathan’s thighs. Undershorts glide down.

  The shock of contact, Roy’s soft mouth. It is as if Nathan’s nerves are bursting, a wet heat. He has never felt any thing like the touch. Roy’s face slides in and out of shadow. Now Nathan has something to think about, other than the fear that someone is there in the darkness, waiting in the doorway in the darkness. Tension drains away. He lets go.

  When the flashlight finds them, Roy is still kneeling in front of Nathan, and Nathan’s pants are tangled at his ankles. The flashlight catches Roy’s mouth straining over Nathan’s heaving abdomen. But at the touch of light Roy freezes, and Nathan opens his eyes.

  “So.” The voice is Burke’s, deep and full of bitterness. “This is what you guys do.”

  Silence.

  “You see it, Randy?”

  “Yeah.” Disgust.

  “Looks like Roy sucks dick pretty good,” Burke says.

  Roy shoves Nathan away. “Get the fuck out of here,” Roy says to the beam of light.

  Nathan freezes. He is fumbling with his own clothes. He can still see Roy’s face, full of horror.

  “Don’t stop now.”

  “Turn off that goddamn thing.” Roy stands. His voice is trembling with rage.

  Randy says, “Jesus, Roy, you do that to him?”

  Roy makes a whimpering sound. He steps over Nathan toward the door. “Get away.” His voice strangled.

  The flashlight suddenly vanishes.

  Footsteps retreat.

  Numb. When Nathan turns, Roy’s outline hovers in the doorway. It is Roy, the figure is his, was his. Hesitant, one arm on the doorjamb, Roy searches down the hall in the darkness. For a moment there is a fluctuation that Nathan can feel, the possibility of another division of time, so that Roy could both stay and escape. But the moment remains rigorous. Roy vanishes.

  Chapter Twelve

  He is alone in the dark for a long time, with a wind howling through him.

  The house has fallen silent. The vague doorway remains empty. Nathan sits with his hands on his knees. His shirt hangs open, last touched by Roy. The faintest feather of air along his bare skin is his only true sensation.

  He has no thoughts for a long time. He sits and breathes. Sketches of past moments return to him, Roy’s hands and mouth, the sudden pressure of their bodies, the miracle of reciprocity, and then the abrupt wash of light, the realization that Burke and Randy had found them. Fragments of that sequence recur. Most vivid is when Roy pushes him away. Nathan has stayed frozen in that position ever since.

  But these are memories. He can escape them. What he cannot escape is the sensation of wind inside him. There is a torn place somewhere in his gut and wind is rushing through it. A sound, like someone humming a sad hymn, resonates through the hollow.

  After a while he realizes he is really humming, and the hymn is “Near to the Heart of God.” Quiet rest. The room echoes with his voice.

  A prickle along his neck warns him. He turns slowly.

  He cannot see anything. Amazing how dark the room remains. But someone waits behind him again. He can hear the breathing this time.

  He stands, slowly. His knees are stiff and sore, he must have been sitting for a long time. He faces the place in the darkness from which he hears breathing. Nothing reveals itself, not even a lighter shadow in the inky room. The door has dissolved in the changing fall of moonlight. But something is there, Nathan can hear it.

  “Hello.” Nathan’s voice is a thin thread in the blackness.

  A sound, an involuntary step. Something shifting its weight.

  “Hello.” Nathan steps backward. He tries to feel the direction of the door. He steps again. His heart is pounding.

  The sound is distinct this time. The thing comes toward Nathan. Coughs, or clears its throat.

  Nathan turns.

  Suddenly he has no sense of direction. The doorway, from which moonlight has faded, has become invisible. He takes a step, and the floorboards boards creak dangerously. He stops.

  A hand grips him at the elbow.

  He makes a low sound and tries to pull away. The hand tightens.

  Nathan cannot even hear breathing. “Who are you?”

  The hand simply grips him. The hand is very strong, the fingers dig deep into Nathan’s arm. For a stunned moment they are motionless. Then Nathan lunges away from the grip at the same moment that the other hand smashes into his face. Across the bridge of the nose. Nathan sags and the hand closes over his eyes. Nathan is being dragged by the shoulders, he is too dazed to move. He hears cloth being ripped, and he realizes he is staring down at something, that his eyes are seeing something, but then a rag wraps around his head.

  Blackness within blackness. The cloth binds tight across his eyes. Now he need not even try to see.

  He can still hear breathing, ragged now. After the blindfold they are still again, and Nathan waits. The first wave of panic has passed and his thoughts are becoming clear.

  When he reaches for the blindfold he is struck again across the face, a heavy slap that staggers him. His head spins. Hands pull him up straight. The strength of their grip is frightening. It is a man, he thinks, because of the strength of the hands and the fact that its breath comes from slightly above him. But it is a thing even if it is a man, and Nathan is afraid of it, because it is as if it has always been waiting for him, as if it always knew he would come.

  The thing pulls Nathan’s arms behind him and shoves him forward. It twists Nathan’s arms to control him, and they walk. There is no sense of hurry. Nothing is said. Nathan feels as if they have come to a lighter place, as if there is moonlight, but he knows better than to touch the blindfold. His arms hurt, but he tries to make as little sound as possible. They come to stairs and climb. These are different stairs than before, and the feeling of a narrow space. They are climbing for a long time, they change direction twice. Nathan can feel the thi
ng’s bare body, its hairy front. Finally they stop climbing, and the thing shoves him, twisting his arms.

  One arm lights with pain, and Nathan makes a small sound because of it. He stumbles forward and crashes into something soft, he hits his head on a bar and sinks into softness, the smell of cloth, the rasp of a button on his cheek. The impression of a button is clear. His knee strikes the corner of something hard. Before he can stand on his own, the hands are pulling him, he is jerked by the shoulders, and again the strength of the man-thing surprises him. He is turned around to face it and he is trembling.

  “Please don’t hit me any more. I won’t touch the blindfold. I won’t run.”

  He can hear the moistness of its lips. It is wetting its lips with its tongue. Something about the darkness, the fact that Nathan cannot see, makes the sound seem familiar, and for a moment he is afraid this is Dad, Dad has followed him here.

  A hand cups Nathan’s jaw, applying no pressure, simply framing the jaw. Nathan holds perfectly still.

  The other hand rips the blindfold free.

  It has been tied so tight up till now. Everything is a blur. The outline of the man-thing faces him. Shoulders squared, breath heaving. The face still hidden in shadow. They are in the attic, they are under a low-pitched roof. Objects appear in a haze: a heap of white fabric, a chair leg, a broom. Nathan rubs his eyes gently. He is seeing better and better. The man stands behind him. He is wearing jeans. He wears no shirt, and his body is thick and powerful. Moonlight from a dormer window coats his flesh in milk and shadow.

  Nathan should recognize the body, the roundness and brownness of nipples nested among dense hair. But Nathan is dazed and the shadow face will not resolve, the body steps forward and pulls a narrow bottle from its back pocket. Eyes that have been struck by lightning, they glitter. “You want some whiskey, Nathan?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? It might calm you down.”

  “I’m all right.”

  The voice jangles. Nathan should know it. “We went through that first bottle too fast. I’m keeping this one to myself. You know what I mean?”

  He swallows. The long relaxed motion of his throat catches moonlight, shimmers. He keeps his eyes on Nathan as he drinks.

  Setting the bottle on the floor nearby, he grabs Nathan by the shirt and wipes his mouth on it. Nathan tries to pull away, and a fist hits him again. The impact of the hand is as sudden as before, and Nathan feels thunder and staggers.

  “Don’t pull away from me.” There is something plaintive in his voice, almost soft. But then there are his eyes, blazing like a predator cat. “Don’t.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  Silence again. A glazed look in Burke’s eyes. It is Burke, that is the name. But for a moment it is like a shadow taking Burke’s shape. Burke has not decided what to do, not entirely. He shrugs his shoulders, and Nathan realizes how much bigger than Roy he actually is. His body has a frightening hardness. He focuses on Nathan again. “Roy left you in the house.”

  Silence.

  “I came back.” His fingers dig into Nathan’s shoulders. “You don’t like me, do you?”

  “I like you fine.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  Burke wets his lips. “I saw you.”

  Nathan’s heart picks up its beat. “You did?”

  “Oh yeah. You were on the floor. You know when?”

  “When?”

  “When Roy had your dick in his mouth. When he was on his knees in front of you and he was sucking your dick. Do you suck his dick too?”

  Nathan feels a throbbing in his head, and a heaviness in all his limbs. He speaks past the weight on his chest. “It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t doing that.”

  “Yes he was.”

  “Please, Burke, let’s go back to camp—”

  But this enrages Burke, and he shakes Nathan violently, then shoves him against the low roof. Nathan bangs his head again and collapses. He is a heap on the floor, rising up on his arms, as Burke looms over him. “We ain’t going nowhere.” He is unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans and stepping out of them furiously. A shadow plays over his bare arms and thighs. Nathan tries to stand and Burke says, “If you move from that spot I’ll kill you right now.”

  He flings down the jeans. He stands there breathing. Nathan, dazed, can hardly keep him in focus. But the mass of him is there, waiting.

  “That hurt you? When I pushed you?”

  Nathan shakes his head.

  “You do like I say, I won’t hurt you.”

  Silence.

  “You hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You going to do like I say?”

  “Yes.”

  He can focus now. A blur resolves to the motion of arms and legs, Burke standing over him, jerking him up by the shirt collar. Then rough motion ensues, that Nathan hardly follows, and his face is crushed against Burke, against fabric that smells of sweat; then Burke shoves his undershorts down his thighs and pushes his cock against Nathan’s lips.

  The house has become silent again. Burke looks down at Nathan, at Nathan’s mouth, at his own hand around his cock. He runs his free hand roughly through Nathan’s hair, then cups the back of Nathan’s head. “You better do it.”

  Weariness. The hollow place in Nathan is echoing now, the inner wind is ripping him to rags, entering through the place where Dad tore him, the opening that Burke sees now, the wound that does not close. The dark attic fills with the sound that only Nathan can hear, the one note of the one song. He has knelt in this way before, there is nothing to do but let go again, with his head throbbing. It is as if he deserves it, as if both he and Burke understand that he is made for this use. There is a hole in Nathan, and Burke can see it; Dad opened a hole in Nathan, and now anyone can use it. He opens his mouth, he makes a circle. Burke pushes inside.

  Burke is rough and clumsy. Worse, an urgency, a need to burn, fills him, and he batters Nathan. Nathan gags and can hardly get air, but Burke’s hand at the back of his head forces him to remain. Burke is very excited and breathes like a bellows. His body stiffens and presses spasmodically against Nathan. The skin smells of alcohol and sweat. Nathan focuses, as he learned to do with his father, on the small details, on the curling of a particular hair or the slight ridge of a vein. With Dad he learned not to close his eyes, it made Dad mad. But Dad could make a lot of noise, Burke is silent. He squeezes Nathan’s head and there is something fierce in the pressure, added to the sudden thrust of Burke’s groin, and the thing in Nathan’s mouth swells up. Burke thrashes and gasps, shoving himself against Nathan’s face. The hand hurts. Burke pushes him back to the floor and pounds himself against Nathan, banging his head on the floorboards, till Nathan is nearly unconscious.

  But then he is thrown again, across something, roughly. He is reminded of Burke’s strength, of the feeling of uncontrollable fury in him. When Nathan is still again, he kneels against a wooden beam. Burke comes behind him, jerking Nathan’s shirt up his shoulders. Nathan’s pants are already around his knees. Burke fumbles with Nathan’s undershorts, ripping them before he slides the elastic across Nathan’s buttocks. The sense of nakedness is keen. With his hand he is guiding himself into Nathan from behind, spitting into his palm and rubbing the spit on his cock. Nathan recognizes the sound, the motion. He tries to go away. There is no reason to run, it will end, it always does. But Burke is rougher than Dad, and when he enters it is as if he wants to make Nathan hurt, everything is tearing. Nathan whimpers a little and tries to push Burke off; but Burke wraps Nathan with both arms and slams into him. He is making harsh sounds and moving furiously, saying words Nathan can hardly hear. The feeling of violence swells, and Burke shoves his face to the floor, begins to pound it with his fist from behind, slamming hard, over and over again. He releases Nathan as he comes. Nathan lies perfectly still on the floor. His face is bloody, and he cannot open one eye. Burke whimpers as he pulls free of Nathan. He stares down at himself. His body is rigid, every m
uscle corded. His face is one wash of misery as he stares down, at nothing. He groans. His fist crashes down once, onto Nathan’s gut; Nathan doubles over, chokes and gasps. Then something else flashes. Burke lifts the chairleg like a club. He tests the weight in his hand. He swings. He swings again.

  It surprises Nathan, that he can hear his own skull crack. The last motion he sees is the chair leg falling into the center of his face. A hole opens up in his head, and the wind touches his brain. He is never sure when Burke leaves, whether he dresses first or carries his clothes. The night lasts a long time. He cannot rest.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After daylight Roy and Randy find him. Sun enters through the same windows that admitted moonlight the night before, and a bar of sunlight falls straight across Nathan. But he is still cold. He wishes for a blanket. There might be something in the room, he remembers falling into cloth, but he is too sore to move.

  Roy’s shadow crosses the attic floorboards. He stands there looking at Nathan. There is something ridiculous about him, it is really funny that Roy can look so helpless like this. He simply stands there. Randy comes up behind him and looks down and says, “Jesus.” He stares at Nathan too. Somehow this all seems natural, even the fact that Nathan cannot move, cannot find his mouth, cannot acknowledge them. Then Randy heaves and doubles up and turns. Roy kneels. Touching Nathan’s arm as he has done many times. Perfectly blank and listless, staring at the air over Nathan’s head, he shakes his head once, as if to clear it.

  Randy says, “Jesus. He’s dead, ain’t he? Just like Burke said.”

  “His arm is cold.”

  “Look at his face.”

  Roy swallows. Tears are sliding down his cheeks. “Find something to cover him up. I can’t stand to see him lying here like this.”

  “I swear, I can’t look at him.”

  “Get me that cloth over there. Hand it to me. You don’t have to look at him.”

  He sits there. His eyes are glazed. He takes the cloth from behind. With careful gentleness he spreads the fabric over Nathan, tucking it around his feet, across his shoulders. “I don’t want to cover your face.”