Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 13:51:30 +0200
From: Julian Obedient <julian.obedient@gmail.com>
Subject: Liebestod

Liebestod

i.

All in black -- silk turtle neck, chamois trousers, black riding boots
-- Marc was pensive as he dismounted. He handed the horse's reins to
the groom and walked up the path, gravel crunching under his feet, to
his house. The night's deepening blue pressed up against the window
panes. The autumn winds ruffled the rusty leaves, shook them off the
trees.

Trent, he said, hardly raising his voice. The young man was at his side.

Sir.

You have served me proudly.

Yes, Sir.

And although you know I have the power to coerce obedience, it has
been willingly that you have submitted to me.

Yes, sir. I am yours willingly.

And you pledge to be always.

I do.

Kneel.

Trent knelt, head bowed, eyes lowered.

Trent had been Marc's boy since he was fourteen, three years after his
parents' death. Marc took him off the street after he had run away
from an orphanage and adopted him. He had grown through service into a
well-knit, handsome young man: poised, witty, intelligent, and
graceful. He wore his indoors uniform, black microfiber boxer briefs,
a leather collar and silver rings in his nipples. His body was shaven,
and so was his face. Marc had him keep the hair on his head, thick
wild black hair which he disciplined with a gel that made it gleam.

Lift your head. Look into my eyes.

Theirb eyes blocked and  Marc  raised Trent to his feet. He held the
boy in his arms drew the breath out of him with kisses. Trent became
hungry, insatiable with desire.

You will never be satisfied, Marc said. You will always know there is
a part of you in me that you will never be able to possess except when
I possess you. You know this is so. You can feel it is true.

I can feel it, Sir, and know it is so, Trent repeated. Interminable
longing to be possessed by you will always haunt me. I know that. My
desire to submit to you, to obey you, to exist within you, is endless.

You must obey me in everything. You cannot do otherwise.

I have always known that, Sir.

I am going to marry.

Trent gazed without moving a muscle.

You fly to Seattle tomorrow, meet April and escort her back. These are
the tickets. This is a credit card. Use it as you need it. Your flight
is out of Logan tonight. Lester will drive you. I won't be joining
you. I am going with Michael to see Tannheuser tonight.

ii.

Trent sat still, sat quietly, in his room, his eyes closed. He let a
little more of himself melt into oblivion.

iii.

Logan was crowded; that was exciting. Trent got winked at and he
winked back. One guy struck up a conversation with him and sat in the
seat next to him on the plane and rested his hand over Trent's cock
and balls throughout the flight. Trent smiled as he watched the sea of
clouds beneath them and the dome of azure that was everything else;
the guy was in heaven.

It was raining when he arrived. They kissed delicately at parting
without exchanging anything besides good-byes. He stopped in a men's
store in the terminal's promenade and bought a trench coat.
iv.

She was gorgeous. He couldn't deny it. But his admiration was
poisoned. He felt something very close to animal hatred, but he
couldn't tell what it was. He bristled. It shot through him. But his
discipline was deep and natural and he took command of himself.

She knew who he was before he could introduce himself.

Please, she said, holding the door ajar.

I'm...Trent, he said as she took him by the hand and led him into the
apartment.

I know. I've seen your picture.

You have? his eyes widening.

You must be hungry, she said.
v.

There was something else he hadn't expected; she was younger than he'd
imagined. She was much nearer his age than Marc's.

How old are you? he said.

She looked at him with limpid eyes.

How old you think?

Nineteen, he said with approximation in his voice.

I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted; she smiled without
guile and with warmth. I'm twenty-three. How old are you?

I'm twenty-five, he said.

He laughed and rubbed his forehead in the center with the fingertips
of his right hand.

What is it? She smiled.

I don't know, he said, grinning, surprised. Then he brushed the air
with his hand and waved what ever it was away.

Come, she said, taking him by the shoulder. You ought to freshen up.
She led him to the bathroom and indicated the shower. Then we can get
a bite. You like sushi?

Yeah, I like sushi.

Good, she said. Now shower.
vi.

She waited until he came out of the shower to slip into the loosely
flowing red silk shirtwaist she wore so that he could see her only in
her lacey black underwear, high heels and silver ankle bracelet. She
was bronze, tapering, perfect.
vii.

They strolled along a crowded street. April hesitated when she saw the
gypsy storefront and then insisted they go in.

The incense was nearly overpowering. The gypsy knew her role and
played it perfectly. She was simultaneously warm and forbidding,
demanded the five dollars up front. Then she took a quick intake of
breath and looked solemnly, frightened almost, at them. She'd stopped
playing.

I fear for you, she said. I can say no more. I give you the money
back. I can do nothing. Go.
viii.

This was strange indeed and it made April's heart beat with nervous
excitement.

What was that all about? she said.

Trent grinned. At the next table a lean guy in chino pants, desert
boots, a loose beige sweater and an old brown velvet jacket was poring
over a paperback of Kant's Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals
and lit a joint. Trent took a deep breath.

You want some actual stuff or do you make it a habit to live vicariously.

He cocked his head and closed an eye and looked at her funny.

What's that supposed to mean?

I'll tell you one day. Here, she said, lighting a joint of her own and
handing it to him after taking a drag first herself.

It was strong and he began to shake as if he were chilly.

Relax, she said. Nothing's gonna harm you.

I'm not sure, he answered. Not at all.

Now it's my turn, she said thrusting her head forward. What's that
supposed to mean?

Let's get out of here, he said.

They walked for awhile in the balmy September and began remembering
New York City, where they both had lived once upon a time. Their talk
became lost and they began to speculate about visiting the city -- who
knew when? -- and going again to places they had wandered through
alone when they had been trying to imagine something that had to
happen but they were afraid never would.

She wanted him to take her hand.

You hold yourself together very well, she said.

No I don't, he answered.
ix.

The plane was diverted to New York. Logan had been shut down and would
stay shut down for another week. It was a government operation, and
while all the big shots said it was essential, no one would say why.
Lots of things were like that in the United States at that time.
Everything was on the verge of being scary and emergencies kept
emerging. And the only explanation was security but everyone became
more insecure.

At Sheridan Square there was a great crowd of people demonstrating
against pornography under a huge banner of a bloody and flayed Christ
being hammered onto a cross.

April took his arm and shuddered. This isn't the Greenwich Village I
remember, she said.

A lot has changed since you were here, Trent said. The Lion's Head is
gone, and the Stonewall is a monumental icon.

They were heading toward Gay Street where Marc kept an apartment in a
building he owned. He rented the rest.

Night had fallen and they sat by the window by candle light at an oak
table eating lobster, drinking champagne and smoking pot.

They were looking at each other as dinner companions do, but then
their eyes became fixated, locked together, and it became something
more. An icy wave was building inside Trent, and then it broke and he
was flooded with heat. They were no longer sitting at the table. As if
directed by a force not their own, they had risen and joined in an
embrace and now were tearing kisses with violent passion from their
painful depths, healing themselves by advancing deeper into the
malady.

He ran his hand beneath her skirt and up her leg and found the heat
beneath the lace and wove his fingers into her as they tore more
violently at each other, lips and teeth masticating love as if it were
a thing too hard to be digested otherwise. His cock was throbbing hard
and pushed inside her as she grabbed it with her soul and cried out
mine.
x.

They could hardly look at each other the next morning, and before they
had a chance to say a word, while she was still bathing, he threw on a
loose pair of dungarees, a sweatshirt, a beat pair of motorcycle
boots, an old worn black leather jacket. Unshaven and hair tousled he
ran down the three flights onto Gay Street, jogged around the corner
to Greenwich Avenue and went into the Peacock for an espresso.

His heart was beating and he couldn't figure out what he'd say to Marc.

You can't get away from it that easily, she said sitting next to him,
signaling the waiter for a coffee of her own and then placing her palm
over the back of his hand.

He winced as a bolt of excitement shot through him. Their eyes met.

And then they were gone, lost.

They finished their coffee quickly and got out of there and walked to
the Morton Street pier holding each other's hand, oblivious to
everything but the beautiful world which enveloped them and the air
which had become palpable to their senses.
xi.

They phoned Marc that night and told him how they had been rerouted to
New York had arrived yesterday and were at the Gay Street apartment.
Marc was miffed that he hadn't heard from them sooner. He told them to
get a flight to Boston right away. The airport was shut, Trent
reminded him.

Rent a car.

We'll be there in a few days.

Marc was getting dizzy.

I'll take the train down, he said. I have a meeting this afternoon,
and tickets for Parsifal tonight. I'll get a morning train tomorrow.

To say they slept together again before Marc arrived would not convey
the flood of passion they were beaten by, and the desperate
electricity that had usurped their reason.
xii.

Why do you shave your body? she asked, lightly brushing the smooth
skin of his arm pit, her left hand capped over one of his hard male
breast mounds.

Marc likes it.

You were his lover.

I still am.

What about me?

And before

He could answer

She pressed her lips to his

And her tongue

Penetrated into the

Cavern of his mouth

And she pressed

Into that kiss

The entire composition

Of her being

A seductive poison

Charged through his veins

Alerted the synapses of his nerves

And his mind went slack

And his entire body stiffened

And now

She said

Drawing back from the kiss

You are only mine

His eyes were dazed

It is

He whispered

As you say
xiii.

When Marc arrived, they were prepared. But they did not succeed in
seeming indifferent to each other. Their stifled desire came out as a
mutual irritation, and that was confirmation enough.

Marc was furious.

He lit a perfumed cigarette, and as the room filled with smoke, and
the Liebestod from Tristan whispered behind them, Marc began the
induction. They were both limp in their chairs, and Marc put in each
of them a great fear of the other.
xiv.

Trent did not know where he was or how he had gotten there. It was a
subway station. A policeman was shaking him, demanding his
identification. He had no wallet. He had nothing. He smelled bad. He
was, he realized, in urine stained kaki trousers, torn canvas shoes
without socks, a grimy t-shirt. He put his hand to his forehead, felt
the sting of a wound, and saw blood on his fingers when he lowered his
hand.

In the dim recesses of his mind he remembered April, but just barely,
and he felt the shadow of an indefinable longing.

They jailed him for vagrancy and released him in the condition they
found him after three days.

He wandered through the Lower East Side, across Astor Place, and into
the West Village until he reached the Jefferson Market Library next to
the garden where the Women's House of Detention used to stand before
Andrea Dworkin got it torn down. Why had he thought of her now? He was
dizzy but made his way over to Seventh Avenue, going along Greenwich.
He seemed to be looking for something, but he couldn't figure out
what. But like clockwork at eight-thirty he was standing in front of
the United Cigar Store on the corner of Seventh and Christopher. He
was shivering.

Come with me, a man wearing a trench coat said, and though he had
never seen him before, without a thought, he obeyed. Their path led
back to the brownstone on Gay Street.
xv.

Trent did not recognize April, nor did she recognize him. They looked
at each other without seeing, without knowing, their eyes fixed on the
blankness that each had become.

April was in a loosely fitting cabbage green smock, barefoot and
disheveled. She was squatting in the middle of an empty room without
freedom of motion, as if she were chained to a rock.

Trent was not ten feet from her when he was seized by a dryness in the
throat and an inability to move nearer to her. He collapsed and lay on
his left side almost in a fetal position.

A gong sounded. Marc spoke. They knew each other and what had happened.

Because you scorned the trust

I placed in ones so dear

I release myself from you

and leave you to yourselves

to gaze and want

but never able to draw near

That fire which burned within each treacherous heart

Now becomes a burning boundary

Keeping you apart

Their eyes locked. Their gazes froze. Marc withdrew. They could not
speak, or move, or turn away.

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