by Rodd Clark
“WHATEVER . . .” The word hung there as a temptation, begging to be explored. Gabe was perched on Chris’s sofa, wearing only the skimpy boxers he’d pulled on after their sexual pastime, while the writer had pulled on a burgundy bathrobe. Gabe told himself: This part is necessary. The legend needs a concise origin story, but he hated having to relive individual murders. He didn’t like how the writer’s countenance changed whenever he heard how Gabe murdered.
By discussing each kill, it added another dark aspect. One kill was sufficient, but having Chris hear all the details somehow made him directly complicit with every crime, and anything more meant there were two sociopathic killers engaged in a single conversation. The dialogue continued, it was just no longer held in the swanky surroundings of The Mayflower Plaza, having been replaced by Chris’s modest digs. As the writer offered dates from his notes, Gabe would nod in acceptance.
“Yeah that was me,” he said with certainty of his involvement.
Occasionally he supplied additional details for each victim the writer named as Christian watched him intently. Gabe knew his expression was hard, chiseled, as he tugged back old memories he preferred to remain undisturbed.
Is this Catholic school penitence? Is Christian my priest confessor sitting behind a curtained wall of adjudication? Am I supposed to feel shame or remorse?
He didn’t like this new arrangement of their relationship. He much preferred Christian acting as his lesser, and not the judge and jury he was quickly becoming under the premise of the book’s research. Christian’s disgust was showing at every edge and he twisted and turned, as if he had sat for too long in the sofa.
THE AUTHOR could feel the tension building; he knew he was losing Gabriel to the minutiae of dates and names.
Leaning back into his chair, Christian decided to take a different tact. He needed to build the story of what city Gabriel had been in, and then tie those directly to murders committed there. If he dragged the man through the mud of memories, he would lose him for sure.
“How did you feel about yourself when you were not committing murders?” he asked coldly. He watched as Gabriel turned his way, seemingly spellbound by his question. Even gripped in surprise, Christian couldn’t help but admire those gray eyes.
“What the fuck? What are you asking?”
“I was curious, as I’m sure the readers will be, what you felt like when you were not killing . . . or targeting a victim or spending your time enthralled by the single act of it? Did you feel good about yourself? Did you feel whole?”
Church sat upright, and the writer could feel the venom building.
“You make it sound like I’m some sick psycho . . . that I needed to kill to feel good about myself.” His expression was ice, his gestures abrupt. “Go to hell if you think that!” Standing up he walked over nervously, looking around the room, looking for something. “I could use a smoke . . . You wouldn’t have a pack lying around would you?”
“I didn’t know you smoked, or I would’ve bought a pack.”
“Only when I’m pissed . . . and you’re doing a great job of getting my back fur up.”
“Then I apologize. I actually do have a pack I think. My neighbor likes to come over for coffee and chit chat—she smokes like a train. I think she left a pack here for emergencies. Try looking in that big crock pot on the counter.”
Gabriel moved to the kitchen and rummaged through a brown pottery jar holding cooking utensils. He located a crumpled half-pack of Marlboro Reds hidden in the jar then pulled a cigarette from it. Turning the gas stove on, he popped the smoke in his lips and bent to light it off the blue flame. It occurred to Christian he’d never had a man in his place that walked around in just his underwear. The sight of him moving around his living room so cavalier and acclimated to his environment made him feel like he’d missed a great deal of life before Gabriel. It brought a tinge of sadness to his consciousness knowing that being in a man’s presence, one with whom he’d fucked, was something he could have easily adjusted to. It seemed comforting in a way he had never known.
Waiting for the mood to lighten, Christian decided to make them coffee. He worked best with his nerves jangled from the caffeine. Gabriel watched as he filled the pot from the tap and spooned grounds into a filter. Both men could sense the air change from agitation to the static nothingness of anger being pushed aside.
“I hope you understand that the readers are not going to see you as a sympathetic anti-hero. There are horrific crimes to consider. If I ask difficult questions, it’s not me being an asshole. I just want to unearth reasons why you killed and the person behind the mask.”
“There has never been a mask to hide behind. Every rotten thing I’ve done has been with clarity and without subterfuge.” Gabriel was back on the sofa, but his temper wasn’t far below the surface. “I would hope by now that you’d have understood me better!”
There was a distance between them that Christian attempted to gap. “I’m trying . . . truly I am.”
“So how would you feel watching it?” Gabriel asked. The question seemed random, but it was clear to Christian that Gabriel knew the hefty weight of his question.
“What do you mean, watching it?” Christian was incredulous—he couldn’t fathom what Gabriel was asking. “I’m already at great risk by just knowing you have murdered and I haven’t called the police . . . What do you mean watch?”
Gabriel had crossed the threshold, but Christian couldn’t pull the question back, and it dangled in the air taunting him.
“You could watch me next time. Be there to witness yourself what happens when a marked person dies.”
With the words out there, he was trapped—there was no going back now.
“I don’t understand . . .” Christian began fumbling with cups from the cabinet, conspicuously moving quickly so that the question would just go away. His stomach began to spit acid back into his throat, and no matter how fixed he was on his activities, he couldn’t escape the frost building between them.
“I’m suggesting you accompany me next time I get the call . . . to be there and see it for yourself so that you’ll know I’m not completely crazy.”
“What’s crazy is you asking that question!” The writer had already arranged cups on the counter, he’d pulled out sugar and cream, but his hands were empty and begged for something to do.
Why won’t the coffee finish brewing, for fuck’s sake?
“I know what I’m asking you, babe. I know how it sounds.” Gabriel moved closer to Christian, but he pulled away distracted and nervous. The aroma of smoke billowed around Gabriel, making Christian miss the scent of wet pine.
Why can’t he smell that way again, he wondered?
“I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think it would help both of us.” The bigger man reached out to grip Christian’s arm, regardless of his resistance. Possibilities raced through Christian’s head. He was initially confronted with the idea Church was still actively killing—he had fortuitously dodged that concept, and somehow it had evaded his brain. He’d supposed that Church had stopped killing long before now. Certainly he hadn’t killed anyone since they met; that would have been impossible, wouldn’t it?
His new lover was asking him to watch him as he murdered someone! That simple phrase carried all kinds of damnation. But surely Church understood that? He already assumed he was becoming a co-conspirator just because of his current knowledge of the crimes. It was insane that Gabriel would even ask this of him. The acid in his throat was turning to bile, and he almost considered throwing up right there in the sink. He was gagging back whatever demanded a release, trying hard to suppress the onslaught of sickness.
“No one but you and I ever have to know you were even there—it will be our secret, something between us,” Church offered. How was he still speaking? Didn’t he understand the lunacy in the words he’d just spoken?
“IT WILL bond us together forever. You will finally see . . . it will finally make sense then.” Gabe was pushing
too hard, he knew, but in for a penny or a pound, it didn’t matter now. He tried to wrestle Chris into his arms, confident if he held him tight the writer would relinquish his obvious fear. But the man wouldn’t be held. He pushed Gabe back with his open palm, and the look on his face seemed overwhelmed in confusion. He was trapped inside the confines of the finite space of his loft, there seemed no place he could run to or hide.
“I have no intention of discussing this. I’m already going to hell in a hand basket for just knowing you, not to mention allowing you to fuck me.”
He paced the floor, hands fussing at the front of his cotton robe. He was a child scanning the floor for something he’d dropped. It was clear he had been pushed to the brink, so Gabe backed away and leaned against an empty chair hoping to release some of the tension he’d created.
“Relax, baby . . . we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Just settle for a second and take a chill pill.”
“Relax. You might be even more insane than I thought. How can I relax? Not only are you still talking about murder . . . but you want to drag me along, like it was some fun activity we could share as a couple. You asshole!”
Chris was unyielding in his outrage. He marched back and forth with his arms gripping his elbows tightly. He was far too distracted to calm down, and Gabe crossed his arms. It was best just to surrender, he thought. He was careful not to move too abruptly or show any interest in changing Chris’s mind. But he had thrown it out there; it was his heavy stone tossed in the lake. It would make its own ripples and waves, but eventually they too would diminish into nothing. But the rock rested at the bottom now, and would always be there. He’d accomplished that at least.
Gabe moved to fill their coffee cups, straying to look anywhere but in Chris’s direction. The only Band-Aid available was time and distance, so he occupied his hands with their drinks in silence. A faint smile crawled to his face as he stirred in extra cream and sugar to the writer’s cup, remembering how Chris preferred it. He couldn’t remember the exact date of his sister’s birthday, didn’t know if he’d ever had all of his childhood vaccinations, but he remembered how Chris liked his coffee. There was something in that. For someone like Gabe, it represented an aching itch of remorse. How much had he missed out on in his lifetime because he hadn’t seen it clearly? How different would his life have been if he’d met the writer years before, or someone like him?
“I come bearing gifts,” he said as he presented his offer of coffee under a consolatory smile.
“But you’re still an asshole.”
“So I’ve been told,” Gabe said, turning his back on the man and taking his spot in a nearby chair. He had overstepped, pushed too hard, but one thing he was quickly learning was how to influence the writer in subtle ways.
“When’s your birthday?” Gabe asked apathetically. “I know a lot about you, but I don’t know that?”
His random, off-the-cuff question had broken the austere moment, and Chris turned, surprised. Gabe observed the merest hint of a smile breaking somewhere on the rocks; he was truly a puppet master when it came to this one.
“February . . . the twenty-seventh, actually. Why, are you planning a party?”
“Just good to know . . . If we’re still around in February, I think I’d like to take you someplace fun.”
“Plan on not being around? That’s only a few months away—the book won’t even be in final draft by then.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking you to the mountains. You deal pretty well with the cold?” he asked blatantly, ignoring Chris’s earlier question. “I know a place near Takhlakh Lake. It has a killer view of Mount Adams. We could rent a canoe and camp out under the stars. How about that, could be a pretty cool birthday?”
Gabe sat sprawled in his chair, scratching nonchalantly at his balls and watching a faraway gaze building on Christian’s face. He could see he hadn’t needed to ply the writer with many stories; he could see Chris was already there. He could almost see the blaze from the campfire reflected in his eyes and almost see his breath billowing out in tiny frosty clouds.
“Sounds fun I suppose . . . a bit on the nose maybe. I keep getting flashes of Brokeback Mountain with two men in one tent, but it could be all right.”
It was effortless how Gabe had corrected his misstep. How he had turned it around with a smile and a casual, deft maneuver. He was good like that. You couldn’t commit grisly murders for eighteen years without getting caught and not possess confidence like tempered steel. He’d set out to lay the question at Chris’s feet—he’d never expected an answer right away. For him it was something that needed to build . . . or in Chris’s mind, to fester there.
“Then it’s settled. We hit the mountains for your birthday!” Gabe’s deep, resonant voice boomed with excitement at the prospect. His words broke the silence that had filled the room with his inappropriate line of questions, and everything began to fall away to a better vibe.
God, I am good!
“It’ll be fun, having you alone and all to myself,” Gabe continued breaking the frozen water that had been icing up between them. He backed away to refill his cup, but it was merely the distraction that would create the safety of distance between them. If the writer wanted to ask him questions later, he’d have to lie about his answers. He couldn’t risk having the water refreeze, not at this crucial point.
BLOWING A HOLE in the steam, Christian sipped his coffee gingerly. He immediately noticed a sugary sweetness hitting his tongue. Gabriel had made his coffee exactly as he liked, which meant his companion paid attention to small details, particularly about him. That sensation was as saccharine as his drink, and he smiled secretly over the heat rising off his cup.
“So, baby, what’s up for the game plan today?” Gabriel moved around unceremoniously and began to nibble at Christian’s neck while holding a steaming cup in one hand and wrapping his other arm around the writer’s waist. Standing so close, Christian could still feel Gabriel’s soft heartbeat, even through the heavy cotton fabric of his robe, and could somehow sense the absence of a continuous thumping beat. He began to doubt if the void would ever be something he’d get used to after now knowing Gabriel’s condition. He worried that someday soon the hollowness inside that irregular drumming sound would just stop altogether, and he feared Gabriel would simply turn blue then fall to the floor. If he stopped breathing while in his presence, he would be shattered. He didn’t want to be there if it happened.
His anger was subsiding, but he still didn’t relish the idea of sitting down with Church and discussing the murders in detail. He was no longer in the mood to hear Gabriel’s accounting of the bodies he’d left strewn in his wake, nor did he desire having sex with him at the moment. So what did that leave for them? Church must’ve felt his unnerved detachment through his lack of response and decided to chisel further at the ice.
“I think both of us could use a distraction. What would you say we forget about the book today and do something just for us?”
“What did you have in mind?” Christian asked.
“We could take a stroll through the city and talk; we could use the time to learn more about each other . . . not for the book, but just because. I would love to hear more about Christian Maxwell’s childhood. There’s a great deal I’d love to hear.”
Breaking his embrace, Christian turned around and faced Gabriel, staring into those eyes of concrete gray to consider his proposal. It would be nice to spend time with him away from the dark images of the book he was learning to despise. And he’d had a good time when they attempted to take that underground tour.
“Why not,” he said matter-of-factly. “Let’s get dressed and face the city.”
They kissed lightly then both broke their hold to track down their discarded clothing. They would head downtown to see what wonders they could find together and hope the atmosphere shoved back all the drama of Church’s sick proposal. Christian wouldn’t allow his mind to wander over what he’d been asked by the killer. Just the though
t of it made a rank taste on his tongue and brought waves of shame and regret. It had been too easy to picture Gabriel as anything other than a killer most times; he was falling into that trap and watching as the door was closing overhead. It was a desperate attempt to hide from reality so he could admire the man for something good and proper, but it was a lie he was telling himself, and he knew it.
Chapter Nineteen
ALTHOUGH NEITHER MAN was a native of Seattle, they had seen the hotspots already and chose to skip the touristy crap like visiting the Space Needle or observing the city skyline from Kerry Park. Christian drove them downtown, only a few blocks from the Mayflower Plaza Hotel, and found an empty parking space to pull into—both preferred strolling on familiar ground. The conversation was purposely light and breezy, and they walked side by side, close enough that they could whisper to each other and still be heard over the sounds of city traffic. Gabriel was peppering the writer with questions about his childhood: what schools he attended, the relationship he maintained with his family, and his current job, which he had taken a hiatus from.
Christian answered each question as best he could, having some difficulty with what prompted him to take a sabbatical from work to write the next great novel. He stammered out his expectations of the book, trying to steer away from discussing the project in detail, which was quickly becoming a sore subject for him. He smiled as he recalled stories of his childhood for an eager listener. Gabriel seemed fascinated with learning all he could about Christian, which was pleasurable. At one point it seemed a meaningless fable in Christian’s mind, acting like the two were fresh lovers with endless possibilities. But Gabriel was not the type of man you took home to meet the folks.
He hadn’t thought about his family at all recently; he would have to come clean with them about his own sexuality now, but he wasn’t concerned about their feelings about it either way. His relationship with his mother had always been a tad chilly, too severe for a normal mother/son relationship, and his relationship with his father wasn’t much better. Christian had learned resilience and independence, but not from his parents’ teachings, more of a cold distance that created a personality separate from his upbringing. Love and support came in the form of the scrawled I love yous at the bottom of Christmas cards and occasional phone calls to keep everyone informed of routine changes in their everyday lives. Christian’s mother would be too embarrassed about not being in the loop with her children’s lives, more than by her actual interest. She was constrained by propriety and decency, but it was also her shield, and it was a shield she intended to carry until her own bitter end.
