Jewels and Panties

by Brooke Kinsley

  "Woah, you have some memory."

  "I wish I didn't," he grumbled, solemnly, "My God, I wish I didn't. But in that dark hellhole where the winters were longer than you could handle and your parents loved to thrash you more than they loved you, Eugene was a ray of sunshine. He was more than that. He was the air I needed to survive.”

  “You know I grew up always knowing I was different. Even before the whole sex thing was in my head I just knew. I remember once being in the swimming pool. I was six years old and the lifeguard was walking by in these tiny shorts and I was just like, wow, that man must be a god or something because I'd never seen anything so beautiful. Girls just never did it for me. It wasn't like I didn't like them. I had loads of friends who were girls but the guys were all I could think about.”

  “When I reached high school and boys in my class were fixating on bosoms and asses I was wondering what all the fuss was about and when they started kissing I couldn't think of anything more repulsive than kissing a girl. Not like that anyway. It was one thing giving your mom a peck on the cheek. It was one thing kissing Sally-Anne with your tongue. Sally-Anne would kiss anyone if you gave her a cigarette."

  "I'm kinda the same," I joked and he laughed, playfully punching my arm.

  "Yup, Sally-Anne was no Eugene and I could have kissed him all day. That day came when we were seventeen and all the guys thought it was awesome to go out camping to this huge lake called Lake Morrison which was a full hour's drive away, a real adventure for a bunch of boys like us who'd only experienced the outside world through a grainy black and white television."

  It was the first time I'd ever seen such an expression but Cooper managed to look both sad and happy at the same time as though his face was pulled apart in both directions, each feature twisting away from the other. His foot began to tremble. It had obviously been a long time since he'd told this story. If he'd told it at all.

  "So, Lake Morrison," I prompted.

  He sparked awake and blinked a few times.

  "Lake Morrison. We were camping. It was hot. Too hot. There were fireflies at midnight that danced on the water like spirits and owls larked in the trees although we never saw them, only heard them. They frightened me. Dad always said the owls were wise. They brought messages. They knew the future. And they just hid up in the trees shrouded by leaves and darkness watching us.”

  “We drank beer. Too much beer. I'd never been drunk before. The most I'd ever had was occasionally slipping a bottle of beer from my grandpa but on this night, man I got raging drunk. So drunk I couldn't see. We had this old transistor radio that blared out the hits of the day although Lord knows I couldn't remember a single note. So I was drunk. I'd been chucking up my guts into the water when I decided enough was enough. I was going to sleep right there and then on the shoreline.”

  “I remember laying my head down on the pebbles and waking up hours later to the feeling of a chilled breeze moving up my arm. Except it wasn't a breeze. It was fingers. Eugene's fingers. He asked me if I was okay, said I'd made a right fool of myself with my drunken antics but I didn't care because now I was sober and had this pounding headache. My first ever hangover.”

  “He said I could sleep some more in his tent. He had water there and some snacks. Said I'd feel better if I came inside from the chilled wind."

  Cooper started to laugh like a maniac, staring up at the sky as though he was seeing Jesus. Please don't start crying again, I thought. Just for the love of God keep it together.

  "I don't remember how I got in there," he continued. "But before I knew it I was lying in his tent looking up at the bugs sticking to the canvas ceiling and feeling the pressure of Eugene's body beside me. The tent was nothing more than a bed sheet bent over in half over some tarpaulin. It was sweaty and cramped and I could smell just about every single part of that boy's body but I was in heaven.”

  “He lifted my head up and pressed the lip of a water bottle to my mouth. I drank until my stomach felt it was close to bursting. When I felt better, I sat up and it was then that I realized he was wearing nothing but his underpants. Nice tighty whitey little things that showed just about everything I'd ever dreamed of seeing. I remember noticing there was a small patch of wetness at the front, just a little speck of something."

  Jesus Christ, I thought. I don't wanna hear anymore but as this old dude was taking such good care of me and he was about as fragile as a kitten in a dog fight, I nodded and tried my best to look thoroughly enthralled in his story.

  "Hmm... wetness," I repeated.

  "Yep. Anyway, I was so shocked at the beauty of this boy I thought I was gonna barf."

  "Standard reaction of course."

  "And I was sat there all hunched up, cradling my stomach just hoping to God I wouldn't puke again when he asked me if I was okay and he touched my shoulder. Just a gentle, innocent touch but it sent, like, this spark of raw energy up my arm until I was sure every single hair on my head was standing on end. I was shaking. I was covered in gooseflesh. I was alive. I told him I wasn't okay. Then I said the worst thing imaginable.”

  “While holding my breath and trying to push down the water in my stomach, I told him that I was in love with him. Then I waited for the thrashing. A boy like me in those days didn't go around saying things like that to people. He'd beat my ass for sure."

  "Did he?"

  "Beat myass? No."

  He licked his lips as though he could still taste this adolescent experience and shook slightly. Something told me that he was sitting right beside me with an erection growing in his pants but I was too scared to look down.

  "He kissed me," he said. "He just full on threw himself at me and pushed his lips to mine. And that was it. We were thrashing at each other. Pushing and pulling at each other like it was the end of the world and our bodies were the only things that could keep one another alive. He bit into my chest. I bit his throat. We wound our tongues together until we were this great, sloppy mess and I lay on top of him, grinding my body against his. He was rock hard. I'd never felt a cock before apart from my own and I remember being surprised because his was much smaller than mine but way cute like I could just gobble it up."

  Oh, my God. When will this end? I braced myself for more details and dug my fingers into the soil as I cringed.

  "It was him who got naked first. Pulled his underpants down so that I see and smell the length of him. I'd never wanted to taste something so much in my life and without so much as a single second of hesitation, I went for it. Just leaned down and sucked on it, tasting its pure saltiness and how it throbbed red hot in my mouth."

  The thought of the old guy, as nice as he was, engaged in any kind of sexual activity made me uncomfortable but not for the most obvious reason.

  "So this was your first time?" I asked.

  "It was my best time," he replied. "The boy spurted in my mouth right away but he wasn't done. I kept going and he kept loving it. On and on we went. There was no way the other boys didn't hear us. We were crying out like howler monkeys for hours. I had to try my hardest to not spurt my load in my pants. It was that good. All I needed was for him to breathe on me and I woulda came. When I couldn't suck on him anymore and it felt as though my jaw was seizing up, he pushed me down onto my back and took charge. It was what I had been waiting for for so long. If I could have died right then I would have. Would have saved me a lot of hassle too.A lot of pain.A lot of regrets."

  For a second, the sadness swept back into his eyes but it soon disappeared as he continued with his story.

  "He took all of me," the old man swooned. "All of me. Just every single inch, all the way down his throat until I was sure I was tickling his voice box."

  The old man let out a laugh and adjusted the crotch of his pants. Now I was sure he had a hard-on and I didn't really want to see it. I looked away over to the far horizon of the desert where a speck of blackness loitered in the sky, a bird maybe, or perhaps just a hallucination.

  "Anyway, I'm sure you don't wanna hear al
l the gory details," he said.

  "Bit late."

  "To cut a long, beautiful story short. I came four times that night. Twice in his mouth, once on his ass and once in it. It was the best night of my life."

  "Sounds like you've remembered every second of it."

  "I've relived it up here every night since I was a teenager," he said and tapped his temple. "You wouldn't believe the pleasure it still gives me."

  I cleared my throat and looked back over for the bird. It was gone now.

  "So after that... You became a couple?"

  "We became inseparable. We had a purer love than any man and woman could have in marriage. We had the real thing. The love of two boys cannot be compared with regular love. We were like two cherubs, two angels hellbent on seeing out the end of days choking on each other's cocks. There came a point when we weren't even a couple. We were merely just the same being. Two hearts, one body. Two minds, one soul. Two cocks one…"

  "Okay, yeah. I get it. So what happened?"

  "It happened. It...”

  It looked as though the waterworks were going to start all over again as his bottom lip shook and I just couldn't bear the thought of him babbling through his tears again. I took the pouch of tobacco out of his top pocket and proceeded to roll him a cigarette, plopping it into his mouth before he had the chance to cry.

  "You're a dear boy," he said as he lit it and gave me a wink.

  He was the first person I'd ever seen wink with a tear falling down his cheek at the same time. Pain and a youthful cheekiness.Misery and irony.

  "Eugene was all I ever wanted," he said. "But he wanted more than just me."

  "Aw, please don't tell me he cheated on you."

  "Oh, Lord no. He would never have done such a thing. What he wanted couldn’t be found in the arms of another man. What he wanted came in slips of paper and made dreams come true. He wanted money. He wanted out of our shithole town. He needed glamor, something else to live for apart from those two hardware stores and the one set of crossroads. He wanted me to bring him riches. Neverending riches so he could be the great character he thought he deserved to be."

  "So, what, like he made you rob a bank or something?" I laughed.

  Cooper froze. The cigarette dropped from his mouth and fell in the sand. He picked it up and placed it back between his lips with the sand sticking to his chapped skin.

  "Or something," he said, narrowing his eyes.

  I waited for an end to the story but he just stood up and walked away toward the horses and that was that. Well fuck, I thought. Clearly, it didn't end well. Normally, I'd have taken the hint and kept my distance but something against my better judgement made me get up and follow him into the stables.

  "It's cool," I said. "You don't have to tell me a thing."

  "I won't," he replied, not looking at me.

  He was bending down to kiss Mercy on the nose. The stables were black and cool and smelled like shit and hay but it was strangely nice and cozy. Taking a seat on a hay bale, I watched the old man and his horses. He was the most loving person I'd ever seen. Loved the horses more than most people loved their kids. It was sad to see. He would have been a great father. Maybe even a great husband to some lucky guy.

  As I watched him, I debated whether I should tell him what I'd been thinking the whole time he was telling his story. I'd felt awkward the entire time, not because I didn't like to hear about sex, not because I couldn't bear it envisage this old man with a cock in his mouth, but because I wanted to hear more and I didn't know what that meant to an alpha male like me.

  “Hey, Cooper?”

  “You can call me Coop if you like.”

  “Okay, Coop?”

  “Uhuh.”

  “You wanna hear a story?”

  Chapter Four

  Lincoln

  At first, I thought it was Schiele making that ridiculous sound but then I realized it was Cynthia who was screaming.

  "You lousy son of a bitch, loser!" she screeched. "Do you not know what the chemical is capable of?"

  "I know fine well what it's capable of! It's you who doesn't know a damn thing! That man out there is insane. He'll do something abominable with it. I can't let that happen."

  "Honey," her voice softened. "Don't you see this man is a genius?"

  "He's a lunatic."

  "A genius."

  "A madman."

  "He can do what no other person can do."

  "You mean he does what no other person would do. He has no sense of decorum. No sense of right or wrong. He's just... He's..."

  He lowered his voice and I imagine him leaning down toward Cynthia like a bird of prey coaxing a mouse.

  "He's evil," he whispered through clenched teeth but I could hear every single syllable.

  Evil, I thought. Is that what I was? No, of course not. It didn't exist, did it? Good and evil were not black and white concepts but instead were an endless spectrum of gray with as many tones as there were people and opinions in the world.

  What did feel wrong was pressing my ear up to the door listening to the couple argue. It was peculiar she was fighting my corner and I couldn't help but feel that I had somehow torn apart their marriage. But at the same time, Cynthia clearly wanted it torn apart regardless. If it wasn't me. It would have been someone else. Some other killer she would have sought out.

  From behind the door, the words drifted away. There was the sound of a chair falling to the floor then nothing else. Not a single sound permeated the solid oak door. I wondered if they'd made up after all and he'd handed over the case. Maybe if I opened the door, I'd find them embracing each other and the Tricepthial would be sat on the table waiting to be picked up by my eager hand.

  I rattled the doorknob but found it wouldn't budge.

  "What the hell?"

  I must be getting weaker than I realized, I thought. I must be exhausted. Pressing my shoulder into the door, I waited for it to give way it still wouldn't move an inch.

  "Cynthia."

  She didn't say a thing.

  "Cynthia!"

  Frustrated, I threw all my weight against the door but nothing happened. Enraged, I kicked at it but all that did was hurt my foot. When did I become so pathetic? I asked myself. A year ago I would have barged in their like the Incredible Hulk. But a year ago I still had my wits about me, still almost resembled a man. A year ago I hadn't met Etta.

  I kicked the door one last time and when it failed to open, I gave up and walked away, striding right out to the front of the house where the sun bleached the tiles. It burned the top of my head and my neck as I ambled around the side of the house to the pool. Kneeling down on the patio, I squinted as I tried to see into the kitchen, my face and hands pressed up to the glass like a kid trying to spy on their parents on Christmas Eve.

  But I couldn't see a thing except one of the chairs pressed up beneath the door handle to lock the door. Cynthia and Schiele must have been behind the counter on the floor but what were they doing? Rapping my knuckles on the glass, I yelled for them one more time but expected nothing. I bet they’re fucking down there behind the counter, I thought. The crazy, old, wrinkled up bastards.

  Making my way back round to the front of the house, I sat on the long staircase that led me up to the main hall. The marblewas cool against my body in stark contrast to the heat of the sun. A small fountain was trickling tepid water out from the wall and I reached over, splashed my hands and ran them over my forehead. I licked the moisture from my fingers then rested back on my elbows.

  This was the life, I thought. This would have been a gorgeous day if it wasn't for what was behind me in the house. Looking down at my arms, I noticed I'd shaken off the pale, deathly, Normont pallor and had become a deep, peach toned brown. I looked good with a tan, pretty damn sexy.

  Lifting up my shirt, I saw that my abs, though shrunken,were still defined. Yep, I've still got it, I thought. When Etta comes back she'll love my tan. I'll need to beef up of course. She doesn't want to make lov
e to a skeletal weasel like me but I can bulk up. I can be the man she loved once again.

  A click sounded behind me. I looked around and saw Cynthia in the doorway to the kitchen. Her feet were bare and they were making a strange squelching sound on the tiled floor.

  "It's all sorted," she said, in a daze. "And I got it for you."

  "That's fantastic, Cynthia."

  Through the shadows of the house, I could see something big and bulky beneath her arm. The case. It would be mine any second. I jumped up in anticipation of finally possessing it.

  "I can't thank you enough…"

  The squelching sounded again. I looked down and saw red between her toes like syrup. It was so dark it was almost black but it was unmistakable. It was blood.

  "What...What did you do?"

  "I did what I always wanted to do," she said, still staring straight ahead in a daze. "I did what I had to do."

  As she emerged from the shadows, the soles of her feet sticking to the ground, I saw that what she held under her arm wasn't the case. It was Schiele's head.

  ~

  I didn't know how much time had passed. I wasn't even sure what the meaning of time was anymore. We were sat at the kitchen table. The case of Tricepthial on one side of me and Schiele's head on the other. It was starting to attract flies already. They were buzzing up inside his nostrils and sticking to his gums where his lips sat open. They stuck to his teeth and his tongue and buzzed with the delight of newly deceased flesh.

  Cynthia was regarding what was left of her husband with a quiet sense of what I could only imagine was relief. Her fist was pressed up against her chin as she thought, her tiny body hunched over the table. From a distance, she probably looked like a schoolkid pondering the difficulties of their math homework, but I was seeing her up close. She was ugly, uglier than anything I'd ever seen. Her skin appeared both leathery and powdery like an elephant hide that had lain in the dirt below a blazing sun. Her makeup was smudged across her face while her eyes were enjoying every second of watching her husband's head.