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 [Fiction]


From Section One of Call Me, "Without Ray"

By P-P Hartnett



 

There are lots of other people in this world besides Mr. Right. Jack had been sent, had sent himself--to my box number. To me.

I manoevered from front door to bedroom without a word. There we both lay, on his bed, almost identical. Pleading eyes across the pillow wandered over my face and chest. There we both lay, on his bed, both tall, both slim, both smooth, both dark, each with a knee dragged up sideways, facing each other, icily regular. Peaceful, pale flesh on his bed, warm and real and ready. Curtains and windows flung wide open.

When I arrived appearances had it that he was sanding down an old chair but there was no dust on the backs of his hands, no motes in the sunbeams breaking through the bamboo cane blinds. It was all part of his tough-boy act. His cropped hair, mashed up khaki shorts and tiny black vest too. But once in bed he did that gentle change-around which tough-boys so often do. Slowly unfolding, revealing a sensitive side needing a good fuck.

Having stared at the ceiling as if scared in the minute before he came, he said "Wow!" as the last drop of ejaculate spalshed high upon his chest, then smiled too much as I withdrew, shipping off the slimy, shit-free condom to warm his deflating penis with what he'd been waiting for.

After coughing a bit he said, "That's better." Our sperm, dispersed all over him, dried on the skin the colour of frosted glass, cool to the touch. I felt the breeze from the open window.

"You're cute," he said.

I felt nothing but the breeze.

"You're very cute," he said. I hate that. If there's one thing I'm not, it's cute.

He slept soundly, lying still and content. I felt left out. He'd had a happy orgasm and all I'd done was shoot my load to complete the operation. How very trusting he was, I thought, fast asleep with a stranger. How calm he looked after efficient sex.

I pulled the duvet over him. It felt like an unpaid task, so I removed it again before he felt either the warmth or the coldness of sudden loss.

My dick had been inside him, but he didn't know my name. Didn't know that his was the first body I'd slept with in the three years since Ray. He probably thought I was just one of the Stepford Boyz. It was out of character to be so random, to be so easy to be had. He'd kissed every inch of my body, nibbled here and there, dousing me with his saliva. All he'' done was touch my outsides, the skin stretched over the grotesque mess of me. He hadn't made me smile. Ray used to put his arms around me and the warmth was magnificent. Our lovemaking was so much sweeter with the prospect of his death just around the corner. Jack wasn't face-down into a pillow -- tied down -- but he could have been. No, he was turned toward me sideways, free -- in a delicacy of exposure. Pale flesh on the bed. Real and beautiful, trusting. It's a short leap from kissing to killing.

I watched a dribble of his/my/our spunk glide from his navel, missed in the mopping-up operation he'd done with my Madonna teeshirt, saying it was all she was good for. I hadn't found that funny at all.

I spotted two pigeons fucking on the fire escape. Spunk continued to glide down from his navel. Before it hit the poly-cotton bedsheet, I captured it up with the middle finger of my right hand and spread it over his bottom lip, then upper, then over and over in a sideways figure of eight, before lightly plunging inside to smear his two front teeth.

Not a twitch. He was dead to it all. I shivered pale green goosebumps as I took in the bachelor flat around me. Nothing soft about the furnishings, it was clear he preferred severity of surface.

"Jack," I whispered. "Wakey wakey."

Nothing. Bad Jack.

On the bedside table, next to a cream enamel lamp, stood a box of tissues. Maybe a nasty streak in him chose to ignore them, wanting to defile my teeshirt. Beside the tissues lay a dusty pair of glasses, a Cannon Sureshot camera plus a tube -- of all things -- superglue.

I continued to look at his pale flesh without blinking, willing him to wake up. His breathing had slowed right down, like he'd reached a place he was meant to stay. And I was the keeper.

It was getting dark. England's even worse when grey clouds take their usual place in front of the sun. Reaching over his body, armpit to nose, finger to switch, I turned the light on and with a rising anger studied a map of previous stains on the sheets.

Pointing the camera at his face I took the first of a series of snapshots. The flash didn't work. This annoyed me. I'd wanted to startle him, but neither the metallic click nor auto-wind woke him. Easing myself down the bed, I framed another portrait shot, then a profile. Sweat had amassed at the nape of his neck, messing his haircut. Click. Then head and shoulders, cut to the waist, three quarters.

Over by the window, I got a full length. The pigeons flew away. Then I shot a rear view. A much fingered textbook arse: rock hard, boxy, with the edges rounded off, inward curving dips creating cute shadows on the sides. Did I read that somewhere? Empty eye socket of an arsehole. Bullet hole of an arsehole. Corrupt belly button of an arsehole. Did I hear that somewhere? I could imagine an arm disappearing up there, clutching soft warm insides to rip out at the least expected moment. I took pictures which would surely be out of focus, too close in. He was in good shape, musculature many would buy by the pound. I walked, snapping, knowing the pictures would be a blur.

Copyright © l998, P-P Hartnett.


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