Charlie Stella
Aristo Diodorus washed his mouth out with
Scope and warm water before rigorously brushing his teeth. When
he was finished, he stared at himself long and hard in the
mirror. He had planned a full day with Raymond; a morning of sex
followed with a late lunch on the boardwalk. They would nap into
the afternoon. If they were into it, they would have goodbye sex
instead of dinner, or maybe both, until they met again.
Afternoon sex or not, Aristo would offer to buy Raymond dinner
before dropping him off at the train station and heading back to
the parish.
Of course, those were his plans before he discovered the
betrayal.
Now he looked up and could see Raymond’s reflection in the
bathroom mirror. The Judas was sitting up in bed clipping his
toenails.
Aristo frowned at the sight of Raymond grooming himself so
soon after sex. Why hadn't he thought of clipping his thick,
ugly toenails before? Why hadn't he cleaned his ears, while he
was at it?
Raymond's ears were always dirty.
It had been a tough few hours since Aristo first discovered
the tape recorder under the bed. His immediate reaction had been
rage. He had chipped a tooth from clenching his teeth. It was a
glance up at the crucifix that had stopped him from doing
something.
As was his way, Aristo had hung the cross above the bed when
he first arrived. He had blessed the room, said prayers, and
burned incense to dilute the smell of marijuana. The cross was a
gesture of sincerity more than religious ritual. It was Aristo’s
way of humbling himself before God.
He looked at the cross and wondered if it had been divine
intervention that had caused him to fumble a matchbook to the
floor in the first place. It was how he had spotted the recorder
under the bed. The marijuana he had scored on the street before
he checked into the hotel helped to mellow him. He wondered if
that, too, had been a gift from God.
Instead of losing control, Aristo had quietly dropped to the
floor and examined the tape recorder without moving it. He had
traced the white wire up over the mattress under the top sheet.
When he stood up, he realized how Raymond’s pillow had covered
the tiny microphone.
He closed his eyes and remembered how Raymond had moved the
pillow from under his head when Aristo went down on him.
Or the recorder would’ve been muffled?
Aristo also remembered Raymond being more vocal than usual.
He remembered being prodded to speak while he performed
fellatio.
Totally out of character, Raymond had said, "Suck that cock.
Tell me you love to suck it."
"I do," Aristo had replied, both surprised and turned on by
the exchange. "I do love it."
"What do you love?" Raymond had asked between gasps of
ecstasy. "What do you love?"
"Your cock," Aristo had told him. "I love your cock."
Raymond had moaned loud and long when he came. It had excited
Aristo and he had moaned along with his lover.
The more he thought about now, the more violated Aristo felt.
He had never suffered fools so gladly. Raymond was beautiful,
but he was also a simpleton. The sin of pride had surely visited
Aristo. It unnerved him still.
He opened his eyes to examine himself in the mirror again. He
squinted as he reminded himself that the subterfuge had been but
a temporary victory, for it was after Raymond fell asleep when
Aristo had gone to light the joint and dropped the matchbook.
He smiled at the thought.
Who was the fool now?
Aristo turned off the cold water and opened his mouth in
front of the mirror. He tried to spot the remnants of Raymond’s
cum under his tongue. He dipped his head as he lifted his
tongue. He turned his head from side to side, but there were
shadows inside his mouth he couldn’t see through. He closed his
eyes and imagined a pool of his saliva under his tongue with
spermatozoon swimming playfully, like tiny dolphins jumping for
joy.
Aristo opened his eyes again. He had left the hot water
running. The mirror was fogged with condensation. He could
barely see Raymond through the steam. He heard the snap of a
toenail being clipped and frowned at an image of the tiny shards
littering the sheets.
He closed his eyes one more time, but the happier image from
a moment ago was gone; the aftertaste had turned sour.
Aristo turned off the hot water and returned to the bedroom.
"You have a cigarette?" asked Raymond, without looking up
from his feet.
Aristo grabbed his open pack of Marlboros from the dresser.
He pulled one from the pack, lit it, and brought it to the side
of the bed.
Raymond looked up. "Thank you."
Aristo held the cigarette out for Raymond to take between his
lips.
"I wish you’d do that in the bathroom," he said. "I’ll wind
up stabbing myself from your nails."
"I’ll clean them up in a minute," Raymond said.
Aristo sat naked in his armchair facing the bed. He glanced
up at his crucifix and searched for a smile on Christ’s face.
Aristo liked to believe it was there when the sex was especially
steamy and he and Raymond were lost in their lust.
Or was the smile more of a smirk?
And what did Christ think of the tape recorder?
Aristo did his best to ignore what he had found since
swallowing his lover’s release. He preferred to remember how
their lustful energy covered them with wanton sweat, and how it
ended with Raymond’s tears.
Raymond always cried after he came.
Aristo glanced at his watch on the dresser and frowned. There
was little time left to ignore what had happened.
"Zillah thinks I should stop seeing you now," Raymond said.
"She thinks it’s unhealthy. She says it’s gone on way too long."
"Our relationship or your clipping your toenails in bed?"
Raymond looked up from his feet. "Why don’t you just tell me
to stop if it bothers you so much?"
"Because if I do, you’ll become petulant and put a puss on.
You won’t let me go down on you again. You won’t let me ream you
later."
Raymond put the nail clipper on the night table to his left.
"Okay?"
Aristo feigned applause.
"Frankly, I didn’t think you missed going down on me or
reaming me. I didn’t think you missed me at all. How long has it
been now since the last time? Two months? Three?"
Aristo sighed.
Raymond crossed his legs on the bed. He pointed at Aristo’s
crotch. "You’re still leaking."
Aristo used a tissue to wipe himself.
"Anyway, Zillah says it’s time I open myself to a real
relationship," Raymond said. "One I can feel outside of a
hideaway like this place."
"Zillah will say whatever she needs to say to keep you paying
her. I think her biblical name is paying dividends on suckers
like yourself. You think it’s some kind of signal from on high
when she tells you to wipe your ass."
"That's disgusting," Raymond said. "And it’s not true. And
she’s highly recommended by fellow priests."
"Former fellow priests."
Raymond ignored the correction. "And she doesn’t tell me what
to do."
"Actually she does, but you can't accept that."
"She helps me make decisions."
"And why is that? Are you too stupid to make your own?"
"Don’t be cruel."
Aristo smiled. "You know what, three biblical letters up
front of her name and it sounds like a monster."
Raymond had to think about it. When he finally got it, he
frowned. "That isn't funny."
"No, but it's popular. Look at what the Japanese did with
it."
Raymond ran a fingertip across each of his toenails. "Anyway,
she thinks this has to end, that I should leave you. For my
benefit."
"Is that what she told you or she suggested it?"
Raymond rolled his eyes.
Aristo said, "I’m curious, does she ever tell you it’s time
to leave her?"
"You have to admit this is going on a long time," said
Raymond, instead of answering the question.
Aristo nodded. "Ten years."
"It’s a long time."
"It’s ten years. The blink of an eye in the grand scope of
things."
"I’m going to be forty-three in two years," Raymond said.
"You’re going to be sixty. We don’t have many blinks of the eye
left between us."
Aristo lit his own cigarette. "Now you’re being pragmatic."
It was the way Raymond sometimes became; forcing arguments he
really didn’t believe just to be contrary. Today, though, it was
probably for the recorder.
"Zillah says you should leave the church. She said you would
if you really cared about me."
"Forget it. I'm not doing that. Not for you or for her."
"It would be for me."
"It would be for you for her. Like I said, you haven’t
figured that out yet. That’s not my problem."
"Except I left the church."
"For me?"
"Because of you."
"Because you were sloppy, Raymond. Don’t go near blaming me
for that."
It had long been a bone of contention between them. Aristo
had always been the careful one. Raymond had too often yielded
to carnal desires. Eventually, an affair he had been careless
with cost him his priesthood.
"It isn’t fair the way it is now," Raymond said.
No, Aristo was thinking, and so you’re betraying me.
"We only meet when it’s convenient for you," Raymond added.
"We come to places like this, remote and dumpy. And you cancel
at a moment's notice. I'm the one left wanting. You're the one
who's content."
Aristo sighed again.
"Well?" Raymond said.
"You won't fill the void, Raymond, I’m sorry."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"There's more to life than sex. There is for me. You know
that. The church fulfills my life. You don't."
"Now you’re just being cruel again."
Aristo shot Raymond a hard look. "Cruel to be kind, Raymond.
Don't ever forget that."
Raymond frowned. He said, "According to Zillah, I—"
"Ah, the gospel according to your therapist. Now we'll learn
something."
"Now you're being sarcastic."
"Yeah, I guess. I'm sorry."
"I don't want to be hidden anymore. I don't want to play hide
and seek. I feel like something less than myself every time we
leave each other. I want to be introduced to your friends in and
out of the church."
And how should I feel knowing you brought a tape recorder
with you, Aristo was thinking. What do you intend to do
with it? What are you getting out of this betrayal? What
constitutes your thirty pieces of silver?
"I have no church friends," Aristo said instead. "I have my
flock, such as they are, and our relationship is none of their
fucking business."
Raymond waved Aristo off. "Oh, that’s just your way of lying
to yourself, saying that, that it’s none of their business.
That’s like some politician who hides money he’s stealing."
It was irksome to Aristo the way Raymond sometimes
generalized. He was handsome and sexy and extremely good in bed,
but he could also be embarrassing at times.
Aristo smiled at him now.
"You really are in denial over this," Raymond added. "You're
just another politician hiding money he's stolen."
Aristo wasn’t going to pursue it, but now Raymond had annoyed
him. "How?" he asked. "How am I like some politician that hides
money he’s stealing?"
"Huh?"
"How is it like that, our relationship. How is it like some
politician hiding money that he’s stealing? What the hell do you
mean by that? Explain it to me."
Raymond was caught off guard. He held up a finger. "Don’t be
a bully."
Aristo smiled. He held up three fingers and spoke softly this
time. "For the third time. How is our relationship like some
politician hiding money that he’s stealing? Did Zillah say
something like that and now you're misquoting her? You should
get it right, what she says, since you're so devoted to her."
Raymond did his best to ignore the sarcasm. "When you say
it’s none of their business, what you are, what we are, it’s
only because you don’t want them to know. You’re hiding it."
"And how is that stealing?"
"Because that’s what I feel, like you’ve stolen my time and
love. Because you take it whenever you want and never give
back."
"I’m sorry you feel that way. And how is it illegal?"
"What?"
"Us, what we do."
"In God’s eyes it is."
"Oh, really? Is that what you really think?"
"In the Church’s eyes, yes, and you know it is or you
wouldn’t hide it."
Aristo shook his head.
Raymond moved closer to the end of the bed. "What?" he asked.
"What?"
Aristo shook his head again. He slumped in the chair and let
his head lay against the back. He closed his eyes and daydreamed
about happier times.
*
They had met nearly eleven years ago when a young Father
Raymond Joseph Bruno was first transferred to Our Lady of Fatima
Catholic Church in Port Washington, New York. Father Aristo
Diodorus was pastor at the time. He was to train Father
Bruno to take over pastoral duties the following year.
It was the middle of a steamy summer the actual day they
first met. A church outing to Jones Beach included a volleyball
game on the hot sand. Fathers Bruno and Diodorus played against
a group of high school seniors that had just graduated from the
parish school. After a long game, which they eventually lost,
the two priests ran into the surf to cool off. They swam out a
ways where they could tread water and talk privately.
Father Bruno commented on how much the children seemed to
like Father Diodorus.
"We’re in a position of power," the older priest explained.
"They’ll like you just as much. So long as you don’t abuse your
power with kids they’ll respect you. We’re idols to many of
them. Not as priests as much as adults that try and understand
them without judging."
"Very well put," Father Bruno said.
Father Diodorus inched closer in the water. He asked, "How
are your accommodations so far?"
"The room is great, really," Father Bruno said. "It’s much
more than I expected. A television and air conditioner. It’s
wonderful."
"Port Washington is a money town. They’ll take care of you
here. If you don’t ruffle feathers, they’ll make your stay
paradise."
"I noticed some of the homes the day I arrived. It certainly
isn’t a poor town."
Father Diodorus was inches away. He had been drawn in by the
young priest’s handsome face, tanned skin, blue eyes and wet
hair. He swallowed hard when Father Bruno combed back his wet
hair with both his hands.
Father Diodorus said, "If you want me to stop, just say so."
He reached under the water and placed his palm flat against
Father Bruno’s crotch. He felt the erection through the younger
priest’s trunks.
Father Bruno didn’t respond. He glanced toward shore instead.
Father Diodorus continued to rub the full, thick erection
through the swimming trunks. Father Bruno bit his lower lip
until he couldn’t restrain himself. He moaned a moment before he
came.
Afterward, Father Bruno tucked his head under the water, swam
a few strokes, and came up splashing water on his face. He used
his hands to comb back his hair again. Father Diodorus thought
he was beautiful.
"Should I reciprocate?" Father Bruno asked.
"Not here, no. Not now."
"I don’t know what to say."
"Your face said it all."
"How did you know?"
"I didn’t."
"My God, it was wonderful."
Father Diodorus smiled.
The two priests swam back to shore where they set up a tug of
war with the same seniors that had beat them in volleyball. It
was a long and anxious afternoon for both of them. The week that
followed was no different.
The next time they were alone together, they were on their
way to a conference in the city. Father Bruno was excited at
their opportunity. Father Diodorus was more hesitant.
"Can we stop somewhere?" Father Bruno asked. He had turned on
the front seat so his back was flush against the passenger door.
"I’m not sure we should," Father Diodorus said.
"I’d like to repay you."
"Repay me?"
"You know."
"I took as much pleasure as you received."
"I’d like to do the same."
Father Diodorus chuckled. "A hand job?"
"Are you teasing me?"
"No, I’m sorry, I’m not. I don’t mean to."
"I’ve thought about us in the water that day a dozen times a
night since."
"I was afraid of that."
"Why afraid? It was wonderful. I can’t thank you enough. I
was dying for something like that."
Father Diodorus tried to joke. "Been a while?"
"Two years."
"Are you kidding?"
"I mean I masturbate all the time, but it’s been two years
since I’ve been with somebody."
"Another priest?"
"Yes."
"No children, I hope."
"Never."
"Good. It isn’t right. I hope you understand that."
Father Bruno crossed himself. "Never."
Father Diodorus was excited. He turned the radio on to clear
his mind.
They attended the conference and returned to Long Island in
the early afternoon. Father Diodorus was driving through the
midtown tunnel. It was one-way traffic in the tube with cones
separating the traffic.
Father Bruno said, "I can take care of you while you drive if
you want."
"Not in the car, no."
"Then we should stop someplace. It’s only right."
"I’m afraid of moving too fast, to tell you the truth. That
we’ll become careless."
"I saw you looking at me this morning."
"Yes, I know. And I saw you. It’s what I’m most afraid of."
"We’ll make sure we’re careful. Drive someplace remote."
"I’m talking about lust. It isn’t easily controlled. I’ve
seen it before. I’ve seen priests touch each other
inappropriately when they thought nobody was watching. I know
two who were outed and eventually excommunicated. One killed
himself."
"Then we’ll be extra careful. I want to please you, Aristo.
Please let me."
Father Diodorus lit a cigarette. "Living in the same house
won’t make it easy, once we’ve become intimate. I’ll want you in
the middle of the night sometimes."
"And I’ll want you. Probably in the middle of the day, too."
Father Diodorus smiled. "You’re very charming, Raymond, but
I’m serious. It won’t be easy to restrain ourselves. And we’ll
have to, make no mistake. I don’t want to lose what I have. I
live for the priesthood. I can’t imagine not having the church
in my life. I can’t imagine not being a priest."
Father Bruno turned silent. Their conversation was over until
Father Diodorus turned off the Long Island Expressway onto the
Cross Island Parkway. He drove to one of the exits for Belmont
Race Track and parked in one of the empty lots near the stables.
Horse racing was between meets up at Saratoga. The parking lots
were empty.
Father Diodorus got out of the car and walked around to the
other side. He opened the passenger door and unzipped his pants.
He put his hands on the roof of the car and let Father Bruno
take him in his mouth.
*
"Are you asleep?" Raymond asked.
Aristo opened his eyes. "No," he said. "I was getting a nice
slow blow job from a good-looking priest almost twenty years my
junior."
Raymond waved it off. "That again? You should stop living in
the past."
"Is that a sermon from Zillah, too?"
"That’s from me."
Aristo nodded.
"She says you won’t let me go because you like to be in
control," Raymond said. "That you want to keep me where I am."
"You’re where you are, Raymond, because you like it."
"I don’t like it anymore."
"Then don’t do it."
"Are you serious? You’re saying you don’t care if I leave
you?"
Aristo reached for his cigarette and saw it had burned out.
He lit a fresh one. "I’m saying I can’t stop you if you do. I’m
saying your therapist doesn’t know her ass from her elbow. I’m
saying if you really want to take charge of your life, you
should start with telling Zillah to fuck off already. And, if
you want to leave me, if you want to stop seeing me, then do it.
I promise I won’t kill myself."
Raymond was insulted. "You know what I think, Aristo? I think
you’re full of shit."
"Because you want to be needed."
"And who doesn’t? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Aristo held up a hand. "Why don’t you smoke a joint and calm
yourself down. I didn’t mean to insult you. You’re right,
everybody wants to be needed. Even me."
"And you have Him," Raymond said with resentment. He pointed
to the crucifix. "You have the Church." He nervously grabbed a
joint off the night table and lit it.
Aristo wondered now if he would’ve guessed what was going on
if he hadn’t spotted the recorder earlier. Raymond had been
goading him to talk all along. Was there a point, Aristo
wondered, when it would have become obvious that a trap had been
set?
He watched Raymond take a long hit on the joint. He refused
the joint when it was offered to him.
"No thanks."
"I miss the Church, Aristo," Raymond said.
"I can’t get it back for you. I’m sorry, but I also warned
you a long time ago about losing it."
Raymond spoke while holding the smoke in his lungs. "You
warned me? You fucking introduced me to the man who ruined it
for me." He let the smoke out of his lungs and coughed a few
times. "You did that, Aristo. That was as much your fault as
mine."
Aristo offered Raymond an ashtray. "And that’s what this is
really all about, isn’t it?" he asked. "You and Zillah and me.
This is about you losing the Church. You need someone to blame.
You need me to blame."
Raymond waved the ashtray off. "Fuck you," he said, squinting
hard at Aristo. "Fuck you," he repeated, before he stormed into
the bathroom. He slammed the door shut behind him.
Aristo took a long drag on the joint Raymond had left behind
and looked up at the crucifix again. This time it was Christ’s
cynical smirk staring back at him.
*
When Father Bruno first came to Port Washington, Father
Diodorus had already been involved with a local policeman. He
had met officer Ronald Jasnow at a Turkish steam bath in Coney
Island during a Church outing. The two men had talked a while
before masturbating one another under towels in a sauna.
The relationship slowly blossomed, but Officer Jasnow had
sexual hang-ups that precluded anal sex. They maintained a
clandestine affair that suited both of them. It rarely required
a room or a bed. One would do the other, or vice versa, in a
car, a shed, a garage, or a private bathroom. They would use
their hands or their mouths, although kissing wasn’t permitted.
Aristo had long assumed that he was the wrong partner for
Officer Jasnow. He had tried to talk the policeman into therapy
to deal with his homosexual issues at the risk of ending what
little they had together. It wasn’t so much a labor of love as a
desire to seek someone new and more open to intercourse.
It was how Aristo eventually introduced Officer Jasnow to
Father Bruno, after a particularly long and heated argument
about finding someone new that might help the policeman overcome
his sexual hang-ups.
"I’m not letting anything inside my asshole and that’s just
the way it’ll have to be," the cop had yelled at Aristo. "Let it
the fuck alone already."
Aristo had just tried to bugger his partner using the middle
finger of his right hand. The cop had grabbed Aristo’s finger
and bent it back until it was nearly broken.
"You’re gay and you’re depriving yourself!" Aristo had yelled
at him.
"You mean I’m a perverted faggot and I’m trying to keep
myself from going all the way," the cop retorted.
Aristo had mocked laughing.
"Maybe if I kick some of your teeth out, you won’t think it’s
so funny," the cop said.
Aristo let go of his wounded finger. "You’ll suck my cock and
lick my balls, and kiss them even, you’ll do that sometimes,
when you’re not thinking so hard, when you’re not stopping
yourself, you’ll kiss them, my balls, but you won’t fuck."
"Not in the ass, no, I won’t."
"Not me."
"Not you or anybody else?"
"And how do you know that?"
"What?"
"About anybody else? If I’m your first male experience, how
do you know you won’t let it happen with someone else?"
The cop grew frustrated and waved Aristo off. He was
twenty-nine years of age and powerfully built. He had won local
bodybuilding competitions throughout his police career. Most of
his entire adult life had been spent denying what he was.
"I have someone I want you to meet," Aristo had said.
"Another fag? No thanks."
"He’s my lover."
The cop wheeled on him. "I hope you use a condom, he’s your
lover."
Aristo ignored the comment. "He’s my lover and he’s really
quite submissive. I think he’d be perfect for you."
"Why, so I can feel like I raped him afterward? I can feel
like twice the pervert I already am."
"So you can learn to enjoy what you are, you dumb shit. So
you can free yourself from this bullshit you’re choking yourself
with."
"I’m a cop, padre, in case you fucking forget."
"You’re a gay cop."
"Which means I’ll be fired if they find out."
"Which means they can’t anymore, and so what if they can?
We’re talking about your sexuality, for God’s sake, what will
make you happy versus a salary. How can you equate the two? How
can you let the one outweigh the other?"
The cop went silent until he finally left Aristo alone. Two
weeks later, he agreed to meet with Father Bruno. A week after
that, Officer Jasnow finally engaged in anal sex. Father
Diodorus ended his relationship with Father Bruno and left the
new couple alone.
The cop and the young priest weren’t careful. They saw each
other too often and too carelessly to keep their affair secret.
They were eventually found out when the wife of a local
veterinarian discovered them while having her own affair with a
man twenty years her junior. They were in cars parked at
opposite ends of a local beach parking lot. It had just turned
dark. The young man had just ejaculated inside the woman. She
was heading for the public bathroom to clean herself when she
spotted the police car and thought it odd the way the officer’s
head was resting. She moved closer to the car and saw a head
moving over the officer’s lap. She moved closer still and was
just feet from the car when she heard the officer moan and saw
the other man spit a mouthful of semen into his cupped hands.
She saw the collar at the same time Officer Jasnow and Father
Bruno saw her.
The next morning, the woman made an anonymous phone call to
the police department. A secret surveillance investigation
ensued. The priest and the cop were exposed.
Officer Jasnow was transferred a few months later. A
detective with two boys in the catholic school where the priest
taught brought surveillance pictures to the diocese. Because of
recent high profile pedophilia cases involving priests, Father
Bruno was convinced to resign his position with the church.
The priest and the cop would never engage in sexual relations
again. Officer Jasnow eventually met a gay detective with the
N.Y.P.D. who lived on Long Island. No longer a priest, Raymond
Bruno turned to teaching within the New York City public school
system. After a long break, he eventually resumed his secretive
relationship with Father Diodorus.
Because he was afraid of Raymond’s instability, Father
Diodorus asked for an assignment in New Jersey. It was his token
sacrifice to Raymond’s loss. He would give up his quest to
become Bishop someday. He would maintain a clandestine
relationship with Raymond, but the two lovers would rarely see
each other over the next several years.
The last year had been the toughest for Raymond. Their
relationship had been reduced to a few hours of lust every few
months at remote short stay hotels. Today they had met in Asbury
Park, New Jersey; a forty-minute drive from the Parish Aristo
had transferred to the previous year in Fords, New Jersey.
Aristo knew that his lover was reaching an emotional breaking
point. Raymond had been living with his humiliation for a
decade. Because Aristo hadn’t encouraged him to stay or offered
to help in his defense, or even come out himself to denounce the
antiquated Church Policy that had caused so much emotional pain
to so many, Raymond had felt abandoned.
Now he wanted revenge. Aristo wasn’t sure in what form the
revenge would come, but the tape recorder suggested it would be
public.
If his time as a priest was running out, Aristo wanted
control of it. He had earned his way to heaven. He had never
seduced or lured a child into his bed. He had never even been
attracted to one. His relationships had all been with consulting
adults. He had performed his duties as a priest with total
conviction and sacrifice. He had ministered to the poor and sick
as if they were his own. He had given his life to the charity of
the Church.
And so it was just that he would protect now what he had
treasured all his life.
If he was to be abandoned at this late date, if God’s shelter
had run its course, or if it was just Aristo’s time for the most
unfortunate of random coincidence; that Raymond’s crisis and his
had crossed wires at just the wrong moment in time, he was
willing to leave a little bit of hell in his wake.
Judas Iscariot had hung himself. Raymond would need help.
Afterward, if the pain was too great, Aristo thought he might
kill himself.
He guessed with pills, or he would buy a gun and shoot
himself. He saw himself searching the street outside the motel
for the black kid that had sold him the marijuana.
"Can you get me a gun?"
"A what?"
"A gun."
"The fuck for?"
"I want to kill myself."
"Why not drown yourself. The ocean’s right across the
street."
His thoughts were absurd. He chuckled at them.
There was no way Aristo would kill himself.
*
Raymond was still angry when he came out of the bathroom. He
was stubborn and refused to talk. When he glanced at his watch
and mentioned he had to leave soon, Aristo pleaded with him to
sit on the bed. Raymond grudgingly did so.
Aristo kneeled behind Raymond on the bed and massaged his
shoulders.
"That feels good, but I’m still angry with you," Raymond
said.
Aristo smiled at Raymond in the small mirror hanging on the
wall to their right. He applied more pressure and Raymond
moaned. He altered the massage, switching from firm kneading to
lightly touching Raymond’s neck with his fingertips.
Again Raymond moaned.
Aristo grew excited watching Raymond’s submission in the
small mirror. He stood up on the bed and let his erection brush
against Raymond’s left ear. He left it there until Raymond
turned on the bed and took it in his mouth.
Aristo lasted all of two minutes before he could feel his
orgasm building. He had already removed the white wire from
under the sheet at the head of the bed. He pulled it now from
his mouth where he had hid it.
Raymond’s right hand moved to Aristo’s penis to help pump the
ejaculation into his mouth. He moaned again when he tasted the
hot semen.
Aristo began to whisper a prayer as Raymond swallowed.
Aristo stopped to moan.
Raymond swallowed again.
Aristo felt his knees buckling and grabbed Raymond’s
shoulders to steady himself.
Raymond moaned louder.
Aristo handed the ends of the wire off under Raymond’s chin.
He felt the last spasms of orgasm as Raymond looked up, his
right hand still clutching Aristo’s penis. Aristo coiled the
wire around Raymond’s neck and pulled tight in opposite
directions. Raymond’s eyes opened wide as he gagged. His tongue
wiggled left to right as his hands flailed in front of him.
Aristo silently mouthed his prayer as he continued to pull.
He bent at the knees for leverage and lifted Raymond’s head up
with the wire.
Raymond grabbed at the wire around his neck. Aristo tugged
harder and Raymond’s hands reached up over his head. Aristo
continued to lift, using Raymond’s weight to hang him. Gurgling
sounds filled the room.
Aristo prayed in a forced whisper as Raymond’s eyes rolled up
and spittle drooled out one corner of his mouth.
Aristo pulled the wire as tight as he could. His arms began
to shake as sweat rolled down his face. Raymond’s body went limp
and Aristo guided it down to the bed.
He let go of the wire and took deep breaths before finishing
his prayer.
"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. And the
Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be
forgiven him," Aristo said aloud. "Amen."
Raymond had died with a mixture of semen and saliva in his
throat.
Aristo could see the image in his head. "Amen," he repeated
as he reached down and closed Raymond’s eyelids.
His fingers were sore. He rubbed them a moment until he saw
himself in the small mirror. He was covered in sweat.
He stepped down off the bed and took a quick shower. When he
was finished, he gathered his things and packed Raymond’s
recorder.
There was just enough time to drive to Raymond’s therapist
and catch her at her office before she left for the day. He
wouldn’t have time to strangle her, but he wouldn’t need to pray
over her body either, he was thinking. He could do that now as
he removed his crucifix from the wall above the bed.
"For I have slain a man to my wounding," he whispered, "and a
young man to my hurt."