Jim Grimsley - Dream Boy

"I don't. But it feels like it. It feels like there's all kind of ghosts."

This makes Roy think again. "Are you trying to scare me now?"

"No." Nathan steps away from him. They are in a black room again, and no moonlight seeps through any shuttered windows here. The room feels small. They withdraw from the doorway to a farther wall, where they know each other by touch, by voice. "But this place does feel like there's people in it. Don't you think so?"

Roy is frowning. "I don’t know."

"Did you ever come to a place and feel like you'd been there before?"

The frown deepens. "No." Silence. "Did you? Do you feel like you been here before?"

"Not quite." Whispered so quietly Nathan can hardly hear the words himself. "It's more like I'll never leave."

Then a sound, a footfall. Nearby.

Roy, by his stillness, makes clear that he hears too. "What is it?"

"I thought I heard somebody"

"It's probably the guys."

Then comes the sound again. A step, another. Another.

Too heavy for Randy or Burke. The sound approaches from the corridor beyond.

He draws Roy into the deepest part of shadow. The doorway is a lighter outline of gray against the strangling black of the wall.

Silence. Nathan holds his breath.

A figure in the door. A vaguer shadow. Someone stands there with his legs spread apart. He is sturdy, square shouldered, like Nathan's Dad when he was younger, like Preacher John Roberts. Like Roy. He is familiar. He makes no sound. He is another blankness of the house, a ghost who could be anyone, living or dead.

The moment broadens in some way, and divides. The sensation is explicit. There are two of Nathan, moving in different directions, and time is no longer a line but a knot, a maze, through which he must pick his way. The figure both remains in the doorway and walks away from it, and Nathan follows in each direction. The figure moves away, and Nathan follows, into the dark corridor, up the stairs, through walls, through ceilings and roofs, upward into air, into heaven and night sky.

But the figure also remains in the doorway and in the haze moves vaguely, like something out of a dream, so that it might be Dad taking off his clothes there or it might be the preacher opening the Bible behind the pulpit on Sunday morning.

And Dad's hand on Nathan's thigh.

The unsteady voice in Nathan's ear whispering, Do you remember what we did when you were a little boy?

While overhead the voice of the preacher sails like a wind of itself, Do you remember what the Lord said unto Abraham?

In the voice of an angel

The Lord said unto Abraham, Lay not thine hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest Cod.

Then Roy lays his hand on Nathan's shoulder and says, "What do you see? What's wrong?"

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 anything 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.

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 thing'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 anymore. 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.