Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 13:39:03 +0200
From: Julian Obedient <julian.obedient@gmail.com>
Subject: Because Inside the Maps Are Spread

It was not always true
That I could say the truth,
But what I saw
Some dangerous mornings
 Left me with a dread of the sun.

All I had to do
Was stand still
And the earth rolled under me
Taking me where
 It was decided I had to go.

But not by me,
No. If anyone had asked
I would have told them so,
Crying. And the times I did
 No one listened.


The loom, the web: the intersections -- of moments, of personalities,
of words, of bodies. Not in the beginning, perhaps. But later. In the
middle of things.

Tom wondered how they could work so harmoniously together to create
such great disharmonies.

Daylight was falling with the sun as it fell behind the far-away
mountains. Tom looked around wondering if Federico would remember.

It seemed like he didn't when he came back. He was bright and gay: his
affectionate self, but he did not act in the least way like there was
anything even a little special. Yes, he looked good, but he always
looked good; anyhow, he was not even dressed as if he were aware, even
a little bit, even for a moment, that it was a special night.

Tom had been disciplined enough by Federico's fluid temperament not to
show his disappointment and certainly not to say anything.

So he had been companionable through dinner, but not exuberant. For
fear of hitting a forced note he did not try to be.

Federico noticed suppression in him, nevertheless.

What is it that troubles you?

Tom looked at him, torn between two equally unpleasant choices.

Tom looked down. He was unable to keep looking at Federico. He felt
his gaze piercing him, and he was frightened.

Look at me, Federico said.

Tom raised his eyes slowly and guardedly, stiffly, if the attitude of
stiffness can be attributed to the eyes.

You haven't succeeded yet, have you? Federico said, gently taking hold
of Tom by his jaw, very gently, tenderly, with real love and
dedication to him.

Federico was bent on making Tom into the man he knew Tom could be, the
man he wanted him to be.

Tom knew that, too. He was sure of it. He was grateful to Federico for
it, and he loved him for it, and he hoped, always, to live up to
Federico's expectations, which he knew he was unlikely to be able to
do without Federico's help.

It's hard. I have a lot to overcome, a lot of emotional landscape I
have to flatten.

I know, Federico said. And right now you thought that I forgot and you
were sulking.

As Federico spoke he passed his outspread thumb and index finger down
from Tom's jaw along the semi-circumference of his neck to his
clavicles and then he took hold of one of Tom's nipples through the
black cotton of his tightly stretched t-shirt.

Tom looked at him.

It's painful, the way I need you.

It's that strong?

It's that strong.

Not strong enough.

Not strong enough?

No, Federico said. Not strong enough. Not so strongly that you are
able to forget about yourself.

Tom was silent.

Federico pressed his lips to Tom's and touched them with his tongue.
It was like turning a key in a lock. Tom's lips parted. Federico
entered with his tongue and touched the roof cavern and slipped around
the ivory teeth.

Tom felt himself surrendering, submitting, yielding. He became
obedient as Federico took him and entered him and rode him like a
magnificent equestrian.

Tom lay in his arms later, smiled, and said, Thank you.

Thank you, Federico said, smiling, too. You are amazingly beautiful.

Tom rose, swelling his slender torso with a deep, circulating
in-breath. He touched Federico's cheek gently with his soft fingertips
and moved a feather's breath near his lips.

I love you, he said.

It turns me on so much to say that.

Their breaths yielded to kisses and they held each other close in the
kisses until they separated and fell asleep. But in the morning they
looked into each other's eyes again and felt the sun rise again.

The radio was playing Ethel Waters singing Here I Go Again as Tom sat
looking at Federico as they both sipped coffee.

Do you know what I think? Tom said.

What? Federico said.

I think I want us to formalize our roles. I want to be your slave. I
want you to be my master.

Being a slave does not mean you don't have any wants, Tom added,
catching himself in a contradiction and needing to explain it.

No.

No. It means that it is irrelevant, whatever I want. In order to
accomplish enslavement I must become transcendent. I must transcend
everything I associate with myself. I can only want what my master
wants with all the intensity of his spirit driving me. I must become a
consciousness attuned to my master rather than attuned to myself. I
am, only because he is. The only chance for happiness is complete
submission, self-obliteration. It's very religious.

We'll see, Federico said, how religious it is. Go take a shower and
make yourself presentable, Federico said slapping him on the rump.

Yes, sir, Tom said, taking their coffee cups to the sink and leaving them there.

Freshly shaved and wearing only a black silk thong and silver nipple
rings, Tom stood at attention, facing Federico and gazed into his eyes
and felt him pouring in.

Federico was opening a space inside Tom that had never existed before
and filling it.

Tom smiled with a joy that overpowered him.

Their lips met.


Once, when God was not looking, Lucifer slipped into the gear-house of
heaven hoping to see how God made everything run, how the separate
parts of the creation could interact with each other and create the
complexity of the world. Lucifer loved complexity. God did not. He was
far more intrigued by simplicity.

So it was not in ignorance or from inattention that God let Lucifer
slip into his gear-house. God was sly. He knew Lucifer would come away
with nothing. Despite his intellectual power, his tirelessness, his
awful ambition, Lucifer still would know nothing. It was in his nature
not to know. That is what made things complicated.

Once, after Lucifer had lost himself inside, absorbed in trying to
figure out how the machinery worked, God swiveled the huge wheel in
the door to the gear-house, like the wheel locking a vault, and shut
Lucifer into the gear house.

Lucifer felt a strange shiver of energy in his wings, and they
stiffened, as did the rest of his body and he felt a desire for God
unlike any desire that God, according to his strictures, wanted to
cultivate.

But God's strictures, like the scriptures that set them forth, did not
give a hint of what he was really about. He ached with frustration
with his unsatisfied love for the creation. It was an erotic love, and
he did not understand it. He had not realized he was creating such a
bond consequent on creating the race of man. It was his world. He had
given it away. Now he coveted it.

Of all the angels playing and singing in devotional dances around him,
it was only Lucifer of all of them who could see that far into God,
who knew that about God. This was the knowledge that cast him on and
gave his rebellion fortitude.

Why are you denying the nature of your creation? Lucifer cried to God
upon his thrown one dewy misty morning evening when all the stars
shone through the firmament and the spirit of divinity infused
everything there was.

God smiled quietly at the indecorous nature of his creation without
thinking once what it might say about him.


Tom was shivering. He did not see that there was anything sexy about
having to stand in the backyard while it was snowing in only a t shirt
and jeans.

It was inevitable that he'd come down with a cold. But he did not.
Federico said he would not get sick. It was a command as well as an
opinion.

And he did not ever mention the episode of standing barefoot in the
snow, but somehow his body felt tighter, straighter. He liked the
feeling. It made him tingle and he became more unself-conscious than
he had ever been. His step when he walked had become firmer, more
graceful, more charged with energy.


We are at our best as allies in the conspiracy we wage against us.

Federico could not contain his anger and Tom said no more. He watched
silently, stupidly as the sunshine of his presence dimmed behind this
dark wind. Explosive gusts were aimed at him and he held his breath
waiting for them to pass rather than be drawn into a miasmic chaos
confusing and unsettling him.

In one instant, everything can blow away.

It was not very different in the morning. The air was hard to breathe.

Federico had gone off for the day. It seemed like he had. He did not
say. He did not say anything about that or about anything else. His
silence inactivated Tom's capacity to speak.

Now, Tom was alone and out of touch with that erotic exhilaration that
drove him through the day like the tintinnabulation of strong coffee
along the strings of the nerves, like a bright pillar of fire leading
him.


Federico smiled and the boy's heart turned on. He felt himself drawn to him.

Federico needed a rest from Tom. It had not turned out as he had
expected. He felt locked in a role. Although he was alleged to be the
master, he was, by that role, forced into the role of serving Tom by
being his master.

He took the boy in his arms.

You are beautiful, he said.

The nearness of their lips turned into kisses. He felt the boy melting
into him, and he felt himself melting into the boy.

Will you come back to my place? the boy said between kisses.

Yes, Federico said.

They left Benny's and walked with dizzy happiness westward, past
Eighth Avenue all the way to the river.

Alan had a small studio on the eighteenth floor. Through glass windows
the height of the walls they saw the elephant back of the Hudson as
they stood passing a joint back and forth.

Do you have somebody? Alan said, special.

I have somebody, Federico said, who was special, but now I'm not sure.

What do you mean now you're not sure? Alan said, wondering if Federico
were saying something about how he was beginning to feel about him.

Just what I said. I have my doubts about whether...but I'm not sure you
want to get that involved in what's going on in my life. We did not
come back here for that, but...

But nothing, Alan said, taking a gentle hold of Federico's crop of
thick and strong almost black hair.

I came back here to know you, in whatever sense of the word.

If I let you kiss me again, Alan said, waiting a beat, casting a deep
glance straight into Federico's eyes and smiling with an inviting
mouth, will you continue saying what you began?

Strangely, Federico found himself between laughter and tears, quietly
amazed and grateful at this manifestation of the human. He leaned over
and kissed the boy on the mouth. Alan opened his throat and took
Federico's breath deep within him and let it mix within him with his
own breath and then breathed the new breath into Federico's lungs and
diaphragm.

They could not stop. Kisses led to pawing and clawing and scratching
and biting and writhing until the magnificence of their bodies broke
in waves of orgasm.

Their breathing subsided and they gazed contentedly at each other.

Now tell me, Alan said.

Federico smiled and moved to kiss him, but Alan put up his palm.

First the story, he said. I remember what happened last time.

There really is no story. I do have a companion. Even before I met
you, I began to feel that it was over. Now that I have met you, I know
the difference between two ways of feeling.

Does that say anything? Federico said with a self-mocking smile.

Yes, it does, Alan said, touching his cheek and without a shade of
mockery in his voice.



Tom joined the gym to get into good shape. To empty his mind. To be
fit for the next thing that came. To settle his stomach. To beat
despair out of his body the way you beat dirt out of a rug.

But what did getting into good shape mean?

Tom did not know it then, but it meant getting beyond himself.

He was not in bad shape. When Federico left, he started working out
again. Tom had begun working out in his teen years. He did it by
himself, surreptitiously. After school, in his room, before his
parents came home, his sister fixed to the television set in the
basement.

Then for a while, he had stopped.

Tom came on as a nerd in gym in high school and college. He was
defiantly un-athletic. But alone in front of the mirror, he combed his
hair and stretched and tightened his body. He was hungry to catch a
glance at the person he wished he were, the person he saw occasionally
in the lean, the muscled, the lithe physiques of one boy or another,
at school or in the subway, or just out of nowhere.


I'm going to take you beyond yourself, Greg said, suddenly placing his
hand on Tom's belly.

Although this sudden, unexpected touch and these words surprised him,
Tom did not blinch but proceeded to do as he was being told.

It was his sixth session at the gym, Friday night of the second week,
after going three nights a week.

I've been watching you, Greg said. Breathe, and start the work-out again.

Tom raised stiffened legs forty-five degrees and then another
forty-five degrees until he could really feel it in his belly.

You describe a perfect right angle, Greg said. Now hold that position
as I count to four and then slowly, to my count, let your legs go down
to the floor, slowly, keep your toes pointed, feel it in your balls,
and then we'll repeat it.

Tom could not see him so intensely were his eyes focused on an
invisible beam that extended from them and made them gaze as if
inward. He just followed the voice as it led him through a series of
grueling and exhilarating exercises and exertions for the next hour.

At the end Tom stood up. Inside, his body felt like the soft tissue
was tight and springy like steel. Tom looked at Greg, really seeing
him for the first time. He was a work of art.

Greg smiled at him a smile of approval.

Get a shower, he said

As Tom was showering Greg walked in, bronzed from head to toe, naked
and smooth and wrought like the marble of one of Michelangelo's
heroes.

Not the grand granite rocks baring their stony fronts exposed in a
field of snow were so beautiful as his naked chest.

He took the soap Tom was holding and turned him round, first washing
his neck and shoulders, then his chest and nipples, massaging him with
lather. Holding his belly with one palm, he ran the other palm up and
down Tom's back, pushing off where the cliff of his rump begins each
time he got there and pushing back upwards, taking Tom to a taller
posture every time.

Tom was breathing freely and deeply. From behind Greg soaped his
thighs and massaged the fork of his body, cupped his testicles, and
slowly worked his way to the cleft and lathered him there and Tom felt
his finger enter him.

He held Tom from the inside with his thumb and forefinger.

I will take you beyond yourself, he said, slowly releasing Tom and
drilling his hard cock into him.

Tom gasped as he felt himself breaking apart, and the ground fell out
from under him.


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