He got a boner.
Two blondes were also there, one of them with an almost stupid face and fish-eyes. He did not remember her name and the other one was called Maria, and Toni could well imagine to find her in the cellar with the Fabrizio. Then there was a black-haired Matilde with a quiet, shy voice, a brunette Greta and the last girl was called Julia.
Julia Constantini.
Could it be?
Yes, as a matter of fact.
Now that Toni took a closer look, he recognized the similarities. It was definitely the director’s daughter who had just introduced herself to him in a confident voice. She had the same arrogant features and the same proud attitude as her mother. Toni’s erection became a little harder and nervously he had to force his legs to hold still. He nodded at her. She looked away and Mr. Ruggiero continued his lessons.
Toni listened only casually. Something with symmetry and image composition in photography. He pretended to take notes, but in reality he only looked at the calves that could be seen under the director’s daughter’s somewhat upturned uniform skirt under the table. Then he wondered if she too could be found down there in the smoker´s basement from time to time.
It didn’t help, he soon realized.
Toni definetly had to conquer the stoner room. Somehow.
Then he almost violently tore himself away from his fantasies of dirty girls’ panties and milk white, tender breasts and remembered the reason for his presence here.
For the rest of the lesson Toni tried to work along with the teacher, who made great efforts to put his knowledge into the students’ brains in a manner that was as easy to understand as possible and with sometimes ridiculously looking enthusiasm. He was almost embarrassed to make sketches that Mr Ruggiero looked at benevolently or to answer his simple rhetorical questions. Even the other wannabe artists, who were sitting in the same row with Toni, seemed find that a little too exaggerated, because one or the other of them did cast not exactly friendly looks at him towards the end of the hour. Toni pointedly ignored this and Mr Ruggiero and his colleague simply did not seem to notice it at all. Not so the girls on the other side of the room. From time to time, Toni’s ears were pierced by a suppressed giggle, but that too didn’t bother him. One has to make sacrifices sometimes. Mr. Ruggiero’s delighted smile, whenever Toni brought his enthusiasm in and answered questions in excess of detail, more than made up for the resulting flaw in his reputation among the students.
Towards the end of class, Toni was sure that his work would be bearing fruit in a not-too-distant future, and when Mr Ruggiero announced the end of class, stowed his papers in a brown leather bag and prepared to leave the classroom, Toni approached him.
“Teacher, please. Just a moment. I ...”
“Yes?”
Mr Ruggiero’s expression was friendly and curious when he gave Toni permission to continue speaking.
“I am a... well, here’s the thing: I have an idea for a project. Something like that which Helmut Richter or Newton did - only with students. It should express the diversity and creative potential of our generation and...”
Mr Ruggiero’s face shone a little brighter, if that was possible at all. Toni told his fictional story. In the end, he left the classroom with a small, compact camera.
“For the time being, this will be good enough to practice. Show me what you can do. When I think you’re ready, I’ll give you a real one.”
“Oh, really? I can have it?”, Toni mimicked a childlike surprise.
“Of course, Toni. Artistic ambitions should always be fully supported. However, you have to develop the film yourself.”
“Oh, sure, that is a matter of course, teacher. I’ll take good care of it. Thank you again. Thank you so much!”
Toni hadn’t intended anything else anyway. With his hands in his pockets, he went back to his room. Antoine wasn’t there yet and Toni hid the small, flat camera in his pillowcase. He didn’t want to stay in his room yet, but he didn’t want to carry the camera around with him either. A few minutes later, still euphoric about his triumph, he stepped into the schoolyard and it turned out that he had done well not to take the camera with him.
In front of him the redhead built up tall and wide, with five of his friends in his back.
***
When they let go of Toni, he was lying in the mud.
His body was constantly sending pain impulses to his brain. Toni tried to ignore them with moderate success. What in this moment bothered his strange, twisted mind was the tactical appeal of this attack.
If rolls had been the other way around, he would have secretly attacked them in their place, either at night in the weed room in the basement or in the bathroom. Not here, in the middle of the schoolyard. Sure, they had pushed him into a more discreet corner before they really started, but still - many had watched.
Of course not a teacher. Or is it?
Toni hadn’t seen any.
He listened inside himself while carefully checking his limbs for proper functioning. Toni had experienced being beaten up before. He estimated that he would be in pain for about a week. But he was fine with that. He looked around. The entire schoolyard was now empty. No one had formed a circle around him, no one mocked him, but also no one was there to help him up.
Toni laboriously dragged himself back into the building. He passed the lobby, the meeting room, and then the dining hall. As he turned around the corner and set the foot on the first stair leading up to the boarding school students’ rooms, he paused. His lowered head looked at a pair of old and shabby shoes. Slowly he lifted his head and realized that his religion teacher Mr Feretti was standing right in front of him.
“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”
Toni couldn’t say a word.
One of the teacher’s gouty hands surrounded Tonis jaw with amazing, painful strength, forcing the boy to look into the wrinkled face.
“You have understood now, I think. Don’t be too curious and stay out of my business, you hear?”
Toni just nodded and after some more endlessly long seconds Mr Feretti loosened his grip and let him go. The pain in his jaw had made Toni think. He tried hard to recall the attack second by second.
No, no one hit him in the face or on the head. Just as if they had instructions not to leave any visible traces. All the yelling that usually goes along with the schoolyard fights hadn’t taken place, too. No screaming. No cheering. Even if Mr Feretti had not revealed that he was behind this beating, Toni sooner or later would have concluded that it was not only Fabrizio Redhead who initiated the attack. He would have made a way bigger spectacle out of it.
He’d get even with that little piece of shit.
No.
With the two of them.
With the redhead and with the gouty crow. Toni Da Silva did not forget. And he never gave up - even if he had to postpone his plan for tonight for health reasons.
He carefully opened the door to his room. As soon as Antoine saw what was going on with Toni, he was on his feet. Once again he ran into the bathroom, fetched cold, watersoaken towels for Toni and helped him to undress down to his underpants so that his clothes would not get wet.
“Those goddamn pigs. I’m gonna bust’em up! I’m gonna take’em all down! I...”
“All right, all right, Antoine. We need to keep a cool head now and we need to be careful.”
“Fine by me, if that’s the way you want it. But I tell you one thing, they will bleed for this,” Antoine reluctantly gave in.
The spontaneous rage slowly disappeared from his face as he changed towels for the second time. When he bent down to cool Toni´s knee again, a mixture of shyness and excitement had found room on his face.
“Listen,” he said shyly, “I can do something else to make you feel better.”
His eyes were looking for Toni’s. For a moment Toni wondered whether he should play with the fear, the fear of rejection that he could see in them. But then he let the thought go and just nodded.
/> When they woke up in the same bed next morning, Antoine showed signs of shame. As soon as he noticed Toni was awake, he stopped stroking his head and jumped up. Toni smiled.
“Everything’s okay. Don’t think about it too much.”
Toni squeezed his friend’s hand. His new lover´s. Then he sat up laboriously and began to get ready for the school day.
His whole body hurt, and although pain did not bother him much, his body prevented him from following the lessons as he was used to do. He just couldn’t get rid of the pictures. The faces, especially those of the redhead, who rose high above him, their mouths and eyes torn open in burning enthusiasm, but yet so focused on not making any noise in their violent frenzy.
Those pictures just kept invading his brain. There was nothing he could do about it. They urged him to continue making his plans, and they distracted him from following the teachers’ words. He had so much to decide. The uncontrollable interference in his consciousness and thoughts made him angry.
Tonight would be an ideal time to put the camera to work. But he did not dare to perform the risky operation himself. He wasn’t up to it.
Was he able to trust Antoine with something that important? Was it too soon? Wasn’t the tender bond that had formed between them still too fresh? Or was it already strong enough to burden Antoine with this task?
Toni was so prudent not to try to make this decision in his current state. In addition, he was constantly reminded of his time in the mining village and of Azrael and his obsession with the mysterious energy. He inevitably showed up in his thoughts again and again did the pictures of Azrael and his mother. Images that excited him in many ways. Usually his thoughts wandered from these scenes to the director’s daughter. And when he was done with those fantasies, he ended up with Antoine. He had done well and Toni smiled as he thought of the boy’s fearful approach. Until then, Toni Da Silva had been an eternal lone fighter. Always the underdog, just too different. He decided to change that. It was time to build a network. Antoine was the first member.
He wouldn’t let him go again. Like a shadow Antoine accompanied Toni as he hobbled from classroom to classroom, always keeping his dark eyes alert as if the redhead and his friends were already circling above them like vultures.
What Toni otherwise felt this morning was anticipation for the next voluntary art class in the afternoon. On the one hand, because he would see the daughter of the director again and on the other hand, because he enjoyed to play Mr. Rugierro with his fake enthusiasm and false creative urge. Apart from that, he was annoyed that apparently nobody but he and Antoine had noticed that the doctrine of evolution taught in biology classes obviously contradicted everything that this asshole of religion teachers said. These idiots around them swallowed what was presented to them without comment.
Dickheads.
Getting closer to the director’s daughter proved difficult during art class due to the seating arrangement and the fact that the female teacher, who did not hold the class but supervised the room with Argus eyes. However, he was able to further develop his good relationship with Mr. Rugierro. At times it even seemed to Toni that the man was teaching only for him.
At least this works.
Later that day, at bedtime, Toni found that what he did with Antoine also worked out perfectly, especially when he in addition fantasized about Luca’s sister and her underwear, even though his maltreated body still caused him problems to enjoy all of those pleasures in their entirety.
The two of them came and breathed heavily side by side. Toni slowly turned to Antoine. When he struck a strand of hair from the face of his new pet with his index finger, he conjured up a smile on his face.
“That was great.”
“Yes. It was.”
Toni looked at Antoine’s eyes, which met his gaze with almost stupid devotion. No doubt about it. The boy was in love. Hopelessly. Toni would take the plunge.
“Listen, Antoine. I need your help.”
“Well, if it’s Fabrizio, I’ll find a way to get him off your back. I’ll make him bleed for you,” Antoine said passionately.
“No, no, and yes. There’s more to it. Much more. Listen ...”
***
The smell of the bliss they had shared was still hanging heavy in the room when Antoine had already been gone for ten minutes. Toni had to smile. How would Azrael rate the energy release?
Then he got impatient again.
He walked up and down the room. Waiting was not his preferred activity. Waiting made him nervous. He couldn’t help it, and began to play with himself. Antoine had immediately been on fire for Toni’s plan, and Toni was sure that he had risen a few steps further up the boy’s love scale because he had made him privy to his affairs. Toni had taken the camera out of the pillow that had fallen from the bed during their love play and handed it to Antoine.
“Don’t mess it up, you hear? As many pictures as possible before they can do anything about it. The old goat won’t be able to catch up with you and they won’t dare to make a big thing out of it either. The important thing is that they don’t see your face. That would spoil the surprise effect, if you know what I mean. I really want to catch them cold. And if you leave, don’t come right here. Shake them off somewhere in the house in case they even dared chasing you and don’t come back until they can’t see which room you’re running into. If you have to, knock them down.”
Antoine’s eyes lit up, fired by the wickedness of Toni’s plan. And they shone a little brighter at the thought that he might be able to punch down Mr. Feretti.
There’s no sign of fear in him. What a little devil, Toni thought.
Toni had gone over to the small cupboard where he kept his belongings and then had taken out a thick woolen scarf which he wrapped around Antoine’s head and face to conceal his face.
Before he sent Antoine on this quest, he had called him his turban warrior lovingly, he and kissed him on the forehead. Earlier this day Antoine had investigated by a handful of skillfully performed talks with elder students that both the director and the religion teacher were married. If the blackmail worked, Toni’s life in the boarding school would become significantly better very soon.
***
There?
Were these hasty steps?
The steps of running Antoine?
No.
False alarm.
Waiting made him more and more nervous. What if the director and religion teacher had been capable to overpower Antoine? What, if he hadn’t been fast enough? Then Toni not only had to come up with a new plan, also the boarding school would be over for Antoine. They would throw him out. Him too maybe, although Toni didn’t think Antoine would rat on him.
No.
Not Antoine.
He had him by the balls in the truest sense of the expression.
Toni quickly turned around as the door handle slowly moved down. And then Antoine came in, a malicious and triumphant grin on his face.
He had taken his time. He wasn’t running.
He quietly closed the door again and pressed the camera into Toni’s expectant hand.
“Ten pictures, Toni. Ten!”
“And Feretti and the Director?”
“Staring with terror. The old goat screwed her from behind. I took a few pictures of it, then I even sneaked around the bed to get more of the faces on it. Brilliant, isn’t it? The old fucker’s certainly never pulled his dick out of a hole as fast as he did just now.”
Antoine giggled viciously and Toni joined in.
“And he didn’t run after you?”
“No. He didn’t. He was just so fucking horny he didn’t get what was going on. Then the old cunt started screeching and he came to his senses again and kept her mouth shut. I have a nice picture of that, too. It didn’t even take more than maybe five seconds.”
“And no one saw you go in here?”
“No. Nobody. Good thing you sent me in. Had to pick the lock.”
“You’re the best!”
&
nbsp; Toni almost didn’t believe it. Now all he had to do was to develop the film on his next trip to the city when his two-week probation period was over, and ... no, he had to develop it himself. He would have to manage that somehow. A small town like the one the boarding school housed - the photo shop owner would never be discreet. But anyway. At the moment he only felt pure triumph. And he had to thank Antoine.
“You really did a great job.”
Toni Da Silva was kneeling in front of his little doll.
“Toni, if you want to thank me, then...” Antoine whispered hoarsely. Toni looked up.
“Yes?”
“...then hurt me. Please.” “Sure?”
“Yes.”
Toni took him as hard and recklessly as he had taken Benno’s body back then. Antoine turned under him, whimpering softly, but not trying to avoid him. Toni saw his cock disappear into Antoine again and again, and every time he came out again, there was a little more blood.
It didn’t take long before the pressure within Toni had increased to such an extent that he was on the verge of coming. He put his hands around Antoine’s neck and squeezed. His excitement continued to grow until he stopped paying attention whether he was quiet or not.
When he finally did come and the inevitable orgasmic twitches came over him, he dropped heavily on Antoine and bit until the skin near his neck burst open and he could taste blood. Toni tore off a piece of skin, only a small one, and swallowed it.
Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series)) Page 21
