Thirteen Crucifixions 6

Hey everybody.  Here's more of my novel for your reading pleasure.  I'm glad to see people in Russia are reading and I hope that there are folks in the BLTG community feeling supported.  If you know anyone in Uganda please send it on.
cheers
Aaron

                                                            1985

            Stephen sat up in bed, a blanket partially covering him to his waist.  His days of shamelessly taunting Glen with his exposed flesh were over.  Ever since his botched suicide Stephen had become, not necessarily modest, but a little more circumspect than before, when, nearly two years ago or so he used to roam around Glen's little apartment shamelessly naked, completely getting off on the discomfort he caused him while he roomed with him for three weeks.  Pierre sat at the end of the bed.  Glen sat in the armchair, drinking tea and not particularly noticing Stephen, who was again aware of the scars on his wrist.  Over a year ago he had slashed himself, and was nearly dead in his own blood when Pierre found him.  Stephen saw it all from somewhere above, near the ceiling of the bathroom, where he must have been hovering in a disembodied state, waiting to see what would happen next.  Pierre was moving quickly, in a calm panic, calling the ambulance and seating himself on the floor next to Stephen’s prone body, just out of reach of his blood.  Stephen watched as the paramedics arrived, checked his vital signs and Pierre stood by weeping.  The day before, he had extracted from his partner the admission that in the summer he had been to bed with Glen.  For three nights they were together.  Stephen who had plotted and schemed to have him in bed with him would remain forever betrayed, feeling forever cheated.  This for him was the last of many disappointments and accumulated small insults.  He still hadn’t told anyone why he had done it, though Pierre must surely have guessed.  He wasn’t that stupid. That a seasoned street prostitute as Pierre could remain in so many ways so naïve and gormless was beyond Stephen's comprehension.  But in a strange, preserved form, Pierre nonetheless had kept his innocence, if not his purity.  It made him seem particularly sexy, if at times rather pathetic.

            Glen just now made him think of an ostrich.  He was tall, but not very.  He actually appeared taller than he really was, and probably didn't even reach six feet.  He was almost thirty with large awkward looking hands and a pianist’s fingers.  His dull blond hair was always a bit frizzy, dry looking, as though always on the verge of thinning.  His eyes were large, round, light grey and very expressive of,... Stephen didn’t know what Glen's eyes expressed.  But the eyes of Glen McIntyre never failed to make him feel tender, warm and completely and thoroughly frustrated and as a human being, completely and utterly flawed.  His oval face held a straight conventional looking nose, neither large nor small, and rather evenly shaped and a mouth with sensuously curved lips such as could never be kissed often or long enough.  There was nothing unusual about his chin, nor any other feature but for his eyes and his hands.  A simultaneously very ordinary and very beautiful man.  He visited them often now, even though the small apartment wasn’t particularly conducive to hospitality but Glen had a talent for making himself comfortable anywhere. 

            Stephen was getting dressed.

            “Are you going out?” Glen asked.

            “Might as well.  What’re you guys doing?”

            “Can we come?”

            “Not that I’d think of stopping you.”

           

            Stephen revelled in the sense of mastery he felt over Pierre and Glen, without even considering that they might be humouring him..  No one else seemed to find him bearable to be around, since Stephen always had to be in control.  His word was law.  And he spared no one his caustic wrath if he was offended, and almost always, Stephen seemed perpetually offended about something or someone.  Pierre appeared to thrive on being dominated, and Stephen was never once aware of how successful his beloved friend was in manipulating him, keeping him fed, groomed and constantly petted like a pedigreed Siamese cat.  Glen, alone, could get away with not taking him too seriously because only he could laugh at Stephen while conveying a sense that he also loved him.  They walked along Davie Street, past Granville, into the wasteland of Yaletown.  Together they turned the corner on Homer Street, where only one solitary young male stood on the corner.  This was the new stroll, after the prostitutes had been driven by civilian vigilantes out of the West End where both Stephen and Pierre had spent many hours standing outside on the corner, until they both suddenly quit.  So far, more than a year later, they both had stayed completely away from the sex trade.

            “I guess you could call us retired now”, Pierre said.

            “Better than staying out here till we’re toothless little old men”, Stephen said.

            “But think of the blow-jobs you could give then”, Glen said.

            “You’re worse than we are”, Pierre said.

            “Yes, you do seem to have corrupted me a bit."

            "You're teaching us to be good and we're teaching you to be bad."
   

            “It’s called going out in style”, Stephen remarked.  “It’s knowing when to quit.”

            “Why are we here?” Glen said.

            “I know him”, Stephen said, nodding towards the boy across the street.  “Hey, Randy!”

            “Hey”, he grunted.  He was blond, young, no older than seventeen, and swaddled in a thick ski-jacket of nondescript hue.  He began to cross over to them.  “Anyone got a cigarette?”

            “What’re you doing out on a night like this”, Stephen said, lighting him one.  "It's freezing."  They stood close enough to be kissing.

            “Rent’s due soon.  Gotta get it somehow.”

            “Have you pulled yet?” Pierre asked from a chaste distance.

            “I was just with one of my regulars.  Another guy said he’d meet me in half an hour.”

            “You’re welcome to join us.” Glen said.

            “How much is it worth to you?” He had an unpleasant, rasping voice and a face that combined the least flattering features of a ferret and a rat.  “I got rent to pay.  Thanks for the smoke”, he said to Stephen as he walked away.

            “Anytime, gorgeous, any time.” 

            They continued along the sidewalk saying nothing.  It was like walking through a ghost town, all dingy brick walls and dark doorways.  On Glen’s suggestion they turned back onto Davie and began to search for a coffee shop.  Stephen really wanted to go back and visit Randy of the ferret-rat face.  To him he was gorgeous and there was not a thing he wouldn’t do for anyone he really found attractive, and apart from Pierre and Glen, Randy was the only one to be so privileged.  He sometimes wondered if he was tiring of Pierre, but he often did grow weary of him.  Here they were but twenty-three and twenty-four respectively, and behaving already much like an old married couple.  He was stranded now with Pierre and Glen, between both of whom he walked reluctantly but resolutely toward some unknown and unexpected destination while suddenly remembering that these were also the two most important people in his life, and suddenly he dreaded being abandoned by them.  Stephen had never heard the words "I love you", come out of his mouth, not for anyone., anywhere, under any circumstances.  Tonight, for the first time, he was having to struggle against the temptation of uttering openly and without shame to these two most special people in his life those three betraying and indicting little words.  Clamping his tongue with his teeth till it almost bled he felt his hands slip around the arm of each Pierre and Gen, as though he was relying on them both, like two living crutches, to keep him from crumbling and falling headlong onto the cold dirty concrete.  He hoped they would never leave him.