by Todd Young
“Where?”
“Jason’s.”
“Jason’s?”
“Yeah. When you were freaking out.”
“Because that fuck had been there.” Cole turned and walked back into the bedroom, his wings folding behind his back as he passed through the door. Then he turned and came out again. “But you should have smelled that fuck,” he said.
“Hunter?”
Cole nodded, his eyes wide. “He — when he was fucking me — it was like this smell, like he was coated in it, but it was sickly somehow, like creamed honey.” Cole crossed his arms and rubbed his biceps, looking unaccountably pale.
“Come here,” Angel said, getting up. He took Cole into his arms, placing his hands beneath Cole’s wings. Cole was shaking. But then Angel felt as if he were shaking too. And there was that harmony again, though now he could hear a sound, like horns, like an orchestra, or an orchestrated forest with birds singing in harmony.
“Oh, I feel …” Cole said. “Is it brighter somehow?”
The room did seem to be filled with sunshine.
“It’s coming from you,” Angel said.
“What?”
“The smell. And you’re …” Angel drew his head back. “You’re glowing.”
Cole pulled away and turned his hands over in wonder, a strange, silver gleam lighting them from within. He lifted his eyes to Angel’s, ripples of silver reflections fluttering over his features, though the skin of his face appeared to be lit from within too. In fact, his skin did everywhere, Angel now saw, or was it simply some hazy trick of light unconnected to Cole.
Angel stepped forward and placed a hand on Cole’s shoulder before drawing him into his arms again.
“You smell like it too,” Cole said.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You.”
They held each other for minutes, trembling like frightened birds. Then, slowly, Angel pulled away.
“You’re going to have to take your underwear off,” he said. “You look ridiculous.”
46
By late afternoon, Angel’s wings had unfolded and were arching toward the ceiling. Cole had spent minutes running his fingers through them, grooming the feathers, and had said, “They’re just as soft as mine.”
“I don’t think they are,” Angel replied, wrapping a wing across his chest and running his hands through the feathers. “But it sure does feel good.”
“We stink. You know that?” Cole said.
“Yeah. It’s a pretty strong smell. But I’m getting used to it. It makes me feel …”
“What?”
“Horny.”
“Do you want to take a bath?”
“A bath?”
“Yeah. Together, I mean.”
Angel shrugged, and then unfolded his wings and fanned them at full height in the room. They were larger than Cole’s, as dark as night, and as Angel fluttered them, it suddenly occurred to him that he might be able to fly. He stumbled backward a step, shocked at the idea, but what else would wings be for? And weren’t angels from heaven? Shouldn’t he have the voice of God in his mind? Shouldn’t he be able to transcend the world and go where?
To heaven?
He stepped into the bathroom. Cole was bent over the tub, testing the water with the tips of his fingers.
“You think there’s a God?”
“What?”
“You think there’s a God?”
Cole turned, straightened, and a shadow passed over his face. He shrugged. “I don’t know. At home, we were pretty religious. I’ve always thought there was a God, but after getting kicked out of home over the gay shit, well, I stopped thinking about it. But I did feel, sometimes, that there was something watching over me.”
Angel nodded. Behind Cole the tub was quickly filling, but Angel ignored it. He thought for a moment, and then said, “You know, I feel as though — not that there’s a God so much — not someone looking over me, but that I’m a …” He struggled to express what he meant, but came up short.
After seconds had passed, Cole said, “Like it’s you?”
“Yeah.” Angel suddenly brightened. “Like it’s me. Like I’m the God somehow.”
Cole glanced at the floor for a moment, furrowed his brow, and then lifted his head and said, “Yeah. That fits. That feeling of something watching over me, well, it kind of is me, but …”
“But it’s more than that. More than you could ever be. Everything. All at once.”
Cole nodded, and the tub overflowed, the water licking the edge and trickling toward the drain. Cole frowned at his feet for a moment, and then turned and shut the faucet off.
“Lucky you’ve got a big bath.”
“Oh, you just love that thing don’t you?” Angel said, nodding at the old, claw-footed tub.
Cole shrugged. “When I was on the streets, sometimes I used to dream of bathing, at night, though I was usually at home in those dreams, or I think so. When I woke up to my own stink, curled up in some doorway, I would groan. There are places you can go — charities — where you can shower, but I’d never had an actual bath since leaving home. And once I’d lost my other clothes, there didn’t seem much point in being clean, really. And I was so tired all the time. So when I came here, and had that first bath, it was like I was home again. That’s why I wanted to get out of here.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you trust me now?”
“How could I not? We’ll be together forever. You know that. We’re bound.”
Angel rubbed his hand across his chin and glanced at Cole from under his brows. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think I could stand being apart from you, not for a moment, not even if you were in Manhattan. It’d drive me crazy.”
“Well, we just won’t do it,” Cole said, taking Angel’s hand. “We’ll stay with each other always.”
47
The water poured over the side of the tub as they lowered themselves in. Cole liked it hot, but it was too hot for Angel, and for a moment he held himself suspended over the tub, his hands on either side as he lowered his ass gently. The head of his cock, and then his balls slipped into the water and he took a sharp breath.
“Just get in,” Cole said dismissively.
It was a little after lunchtime now, and once Angel was settled in the bath, he said, “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah?”
Angel nodded.
“I don’t think I could eat anything. I could drink some water, maybe. But what I really want to do is go out in the sunshine.”
“Do you think you could fly?”
“Fly?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean take off into the sky like Superman?”
Angel smirked, and then grinned mischievously.
Cole smiled quietly in reply. He slid his feet alongside Angel’s hips and leaned back, folding his wings behind him.
“You know, you have got wings.” Angel said.
“If it’s not a dream.”
“You feel that too?”
“Oh, yeah, I feel like the world’s suddenly changed, like if I look out the window I’ll see rolling green hills and grand old houses dotted here and there.”
“Like in Mansfield Park.”
“What?”
“It’s a novel. I read it when I was in that institute.”
“Yeah? I’ve only ever read one book. It was called Z for Zachariah.”
“What was that like?”
“Oh, it was great. I had to read it for school. But my parents didn’t like me reading anything that wasn’t Christian. They’re Jehovah Witnesses, so I’ve mainly just read The Watchtower. And they had this other book about judgment day, and what life would be like after it — the wolf lying down with the lamb, green fields and smiling faces.”
“Was it a picture book?”
“Yeah.”
Angel writhed a little, trying to settle his wings comfortably behind his back. Cole drew his foot toward his b
ody and then slid it between Angel’s thighs, until it was resting against his genitals.
Angel smiled.
Cole said, “You feel like …?”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” Cole lifted a shoulder.
Angel’s cock rolled beneath the surface as it began to swell.
“How come you never got circumcised?”
“I don’t know.” Angel glanced at it. “My mother said it was child abuse. She told me that when I was fourteen and I went red in the face. I used to get some heavy shit about it at school.” He lifted it out of the water and turned it over as he said, “I was the only guy with an uncut cock.”
“I like it,” Cole said, nodding at Angel’s cock as it mushroomed in his hands. “I kind of wish … maybe. Hell, I don’t know. I didn’t even realize anything had been done to me till I was a teenager. I thought all cocks were like this.”
Cole reached for his cock and started to tug on it gently, and at the same time, as Angel released his cock, began to stroke the underside of Angel’s cock with his toes. Angel closed his eyes, aware of a brightness in the room beyond his lids, though when he opened them again, he saw that it was Cole and himself, radiating silver light.
“It’s like Close Encounters,” Angel said.
“What?”
“When the aliens come out of the spaceship and they’re all glowing. That’s what it’s like between us. We’re like light bulbs.”
“You want to concentrate?” Cole said, thrusting his foot peevishly into Angel’s groin.
“Get up, then.”
“Get up?”
“Yeah. Come sit on my cock.”
48
Cole lowered himself silently onto Angel, his wings fluttering skittishly. Angel had a mouthful of feathers before he’d managed to bury his face between Cole’s shoulder blades, where the skin was pale and smooth.
“You want to just sit there?” Angel said.
“It feels okay.”
“You want me to give you the reach around?”
“Okay.”
Angel gripped Cole’s hips and pushed him firmly onto his cock until he was buried deep. Then he reached for Cole’s cock, teased his thumb over the head and began to tug gently. Cole relaxed, sinking on Angel, his wings damp and soft. Angel gripped his hip with one hand while he tugged with the other, trying to keep Cole as still as possible as he began to thrust with short, weighted jerks, though he could barely move at all. It was heavy and warm and gentle and seemed to go on forever. But finally, Cole’s body stiffened, clenching Angel’s cock so that they came in unison.
Cole’s cum floated across the water, yet it was only after staring at it for a moment that Angel was surprised by its brilliance. He started, scooting back a little, and Cole cried out. “Ow!” he said.
“Sorry. But look at your cum.”
It was sinking beneath the surface now, like a jellyfish, but Cole leaned forward and cupped his hand under it. He drew the jism out of the water and stared at it in fascination.
“Well, that’s weird,” he said.
“Weird?”
“Yeah.”
“Dude, black was weird. That’s …”
“No. It’s like it’s got a sort of glow to it, like it’s alive.”
“You think mine’s like that?”
Cole shrugged. He put his hands on the side of the tub and lifted himself off Angel, and as he did so, Angel glanced down and glimpsed a smear of dark fluid on the head of his cock. He swished water over it quickly and turned away from Cole.
49
Angel made himself some toasted cheese sandwiches and sat at the kitchen table with Cole, though all Cole said he wanted was a glass of Coke. They sat in silence together, the ice in Cole’s Coke rattling each time he angled it to his lips. Unexpectedly, he spat the straw out and looked up at Angel from beneath his bangs. “I feel like a kid,” he said.
“Like a kid?”
“Yeah. Like it’s my birthday or something.”
“It’s a glass of Coke, Cole.”
“No. I mean … I’m just so happy. I haven’t been this happy since I was a kid, riding my trail bike or swimming in the river.”
Angel nodded, took a bite of his sandwich and then sucked the corner of his bottom lip into his mouth. He was worrying over the glimpse he’d caught of his jism, over how dark and viscous it had looked. Perhaps it was because he’d only just got his wings, he reasoned, figuring that Cole’s had erupted yesterday, and that if the two things were connected—
“You okay?” Cole said.
“Huh?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just thinking.”
“Not happy thoughts?”
Angel shrugged, and then sighed heavily. He folded his wings over the back of the chair and began to tap it fretfully, something that was somehow similar to jiggling his knees. “What time is it now?” he said.
Cole glanced at the clock above Angel’s head. “Four-thirty.”
“When does it get dark?”
“About seven-thirty.”
“So how are we going to get to the Bronx with wings?”
“We?”
“You don’t think I’m letting you go on your own, do you?”
Cole lowered his head. “I thought you’d given up on the idea to tell you the truth.”
“What about Finn and Jason?”
Cole shrugged.
“You smelled their apartment. This — mist — whatever it is. I think it was them.”
“You think they’re like us now?”
“You saw the way they were together. I mean … I’d say so.”
“And he’s taken them somewhere?”
“What else could have happened, Cole?”
Cole shrugged. When he looked up again, his green eyes were glittering with tears. “I just don’t want … anything to happen … to you. To us.”
Angel understood, but he felt dreadful about Finn, a feeling that had been bugging him for days now. He realized now that he’d been on the verge of falling in love with Finn, and even today there was some residual feeling, something over which he felt uncomfortably conflicted. “I can’t just give up on them, Cole. Don’t you feel that?”
Cole nodded slowly but turned away. He spoke while looking at the wall. “You know, last year, when Finn was in New York hustling, everyone pretty much hated him.”
“He’s not your average guy.”
“Every John wanted Finn. They’d cruise by and ask us if we’d seen him. They’d wait for him, make appointments and keep them. Finn was barely on the streets he worked so much. And he had money. So much fucking money.” Cole paused. He turned to Angel. “He told me once that he fell in love with them — the Johns. Not all of them, but a lot of them, and that’s why they wanted him. He said he was in love with fifty people.”
Angel shook his head.
“No. It was true. You’d see his face light up when they came along. This one guy I remember, a middle-aged guy with a bald head and gray hair. He wasn’t real big — just average height. He had man boobs and his chest was caved in. A double chin. Crow’s feet. A nothing face. Just a nobody to look at,” Cole said. “You get what I’m saying?”
Angel nodded.
“Well he was Finn’s special man, the one he loved the most, and the only one, Finn said, who had any real love for him. Finn didn’t make the guy pay. I think he even gave him money. The guy was on a disability pension or something. Lived in a big room in this old house. Finn took me there once … and we …” Cole’s voice trailed off.
Angel inclined his head and stopped, suddenly visualizing what Cole was describing.
“He was a nice enough guy, but I don’t think I could have loved him. He had a mental illness, schizophrenia or something.” Cole paused. “So how does that work?”
Angel blew air through his cheeks. “I don’t know.”
“And he’s so fucking beautiful. I wanted him myself.”
“But
he didn’t love you?”
Cole’s head jolted and he stared at the table for a long moment. Then, “Yeah,” he said, suddenly nodding quickly. “Now that you say it — yeah — I think he did. Or a little bit.” Cole paused, thinking, and then lifted his head again. “He gave me money sometimes too,” he said, his eyes wide and apologetic.
“But you’re not his friend?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Cole put his head in his hands and then laid it on the table. His wings rose into the air and fluttered, anxious and restive. Then Cole folded them over his back and sighed.
Angel reached forward and began to stroke Cole’s hair gently. “We have to. You know that. I mean, he said he was in love with me. He told me he was in love with me and that if I loved him in return … But then he made me fuck Jason.”
“Fuck Jason?”
“Yeah. Finn invited some vampire in, and she drank Jason’s blood.”
“Vampire? Are you fucking crazy? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Finn said she was a vampire.”
“A vampire?”
“Cole, you’re an angel, and a few weeks ago — in fact not even until I saw your wings sprout — I didn’t believe in angels”
“I’ve never heard of a vampire, though. Not for real.”
“But you see the dark?”
“Yeah. But not that sort of thing … just fuckups. Except when we were walking on the street — over to Jason’s that day.”
Angel nodded pointedly.
“So you think we were on the street with vampires?”
“I think we have to consider it, Cole. I know Finn’s a fucker, but I saw the bite marks on Jason’s neck. Something bit him, and not with an ordinary set of teeth.”
“Okay. Shit,” Cole said, suddenly standing and changing pace. “I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of this shit.”
He twisted his shoulders one way and then the other, his body writhing awkwardly. He rolled one shoulder and then the other, and Angel watched in awe as the elbows of his wings slipped beneath his shoulder blades, locking beneath the bones. Cole lifted himself onto his toes and the tips of his wings fluttered against the small of his back.
