Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:21:57 -0500
From: A. Cheshire Cat <kierkegaard_is_cool@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Masterpiece

The Masterpiece

A. Cheshire Catt

all in one day, December 23, 2007 (perilously close to Christmas Eve)

email me: I love your feedback
kierkegaard_is_cool@hotmail.com

For after all, there was nothing to be said about the goodness in his
soul, there was nothing of goodness in him anyway: no valour, no honor,
no shame. He had grown up as a good boy. Polite, sincere, of good
intention, he was the sort of person one was proud to present to
respectable society, he was cheerful and pleasant with the conversation
he made with people of the variety one shakes the hands of, kisses the
cheeks of. He was an artist, he was a poet, he was a bit of a scholar, an
amateur with his fingers dabbling in the spectrum of word-play men of
intellect can take years to grasp with any confidence at all. He was from
a family of local-hero status. His father was the son of a successful
agriculturalist, his mother was the daughter of an architect whose less
popular buildings can still be seen in this town. Worldly and well-read,
his home was complete with all the fineries inherited from generations of
such people. But, for after all there was nothing to be said about any of
that, this young man was just a man, prone to getting himself into all
sorts of trouble; and, though he might be presented to people who are
patrons of theater groups and art galleries, his mind was of the most
depraved kind. The ease with each he navigated the fine line between
madness and sobriety suggested a complexity and depth that will assure
this young man a fine place in the greatest realms of Hell.

His name was Bradford Dupuis. Tall, thin, gallant: he dresses
fashionably, with well-tailored jackets, stylish shirts, nicely-hemmed
pants, shoes polished, hair tightly trimmed. He had spent his spritely
years writing criticisms that ruined the careers of many an aspiring
local artist. He was popular at local pubs and clubs for arriving late,
selecting boys of the rosiest-cheeks, innocent kinds, naive like
this, for his heartless, brutal, selfish passion. Often, after such
nights, he left those kids on street corners flagging cabs at god-awful
hours of the night when he refused to let them sleep with him. Those who
had been in his home over the years told fantastic things about the
chambers of facetious decorum, their legends grew to precede him before
he even got to those places where rosy-cheeked cherubs awaited such
loveless sexual slaughter.

All this before the young man reached thirty years of age and yet the
young man seemed ancient. His hair had grayed after the sudden death of
his parents. His face had turned to stone after the only lover he'd ever
known had disappeared while pursuing a single passion in a place of
absolute savagery. His hands crept upon door knobs, his shadow made
blades of grass tremble, and his echo often refused to return as if his
voice was freed from him, and liberated would never return. All this may
have been fine, all this may have been assured: but after all it meant
nothing on that night when this strange incident occured.

See, it is important to realize he did not live a solitary life. He was
well-acquainted with several people of similarly devious disposition.
This being an age of not exactly the most Christian persuausion, he was
easily befriended online with people around the world who had far too
much time on their hands, and somewhat ill-begotten luxury. He was able
to collect a circle of friends within his own city that laughed in the
face of the misery of others. Such was the fate of one young man several
years before.

On that night, when Bradford Dupuis was just an art critic with parents
living in a mansion in the suburbs, he was joined by his friends at a
local theater reopened for a rarity in the performing arts, the revue of
a troupe brought across the ocean to this run-down place. Where
spectacular shows had been given for the amusement and titilation of
children, the dimly flickering marquee invited them in for what was now a
performace frought with ghosts of the most frightening kind. His friends
that evening included but were not limited to, three young savantes of
similar age and fashion. The son of a Russian diplomat, one Maxim
Pushkin: a fiery young man with a terrific collection of guns that had
played the part in some of the more gruesome events in history, his
prized possession was the pistol that had done in King Gustav III of
Sweden. They were joined that evening at the theater by the arrogant
drunk, the heiress of an untouchable marijuana tycoon, Violet Sky, a waif
of a young woman, with high-heeled boots who spoke in tongues, as if
awake she dreamt of the future, the past, or some other realm in the here
and now. Also in attendance was the less sinister, and often mocked, the
small-time stage actor, barely liked by the art critic, one Toddery
Johnson, a mimic of their fashion, a victim of circumstance. That
evening, that night, they were to lose one of their friends, not to death
but to normalcy. But they'd no idea how real the pain of a soul could be.

It came to pass that their arrival at the theater would be late. They
would stride through the doors into the theater with a clamor and disrupt
the opening refrains of the show. The darkly clad emcee, with his
old-fashioned microphone squealing like a disturbed child, would look
disappointingly upon these four children of the night with a sour
disapproval. Whatever it was that he had explained they had sorely
missed. And drunk with the wines taken during a light dinner, they
laughed as an usher forced them to take uncomfortable seats near the
front.

The usher was a young man, terrifyingly sullen. He lurched with a small,
hand-held light at them, hushing them sternly, but they huffed and
wailed, and disturbed the serious attention paid by the sparsely
attending audience.

Clearing his throat, the phantom harlequin host warned the foursome, "You
four will pay a grim price for your insolence: you're a nuisance to the
ambience, a pestering monster in this dark place."

"Stop talking in riddles old man," Maxim was heard saying.

Toddery was worried about what price they'd have to pay and wished his
friends would respect the program of the show.

"We should be careful, fates terrible and unholy fall from these
high-held sceneries," Violet noted.

They took their seats and the host continued.

"This evening, my humble company will provide for its patrons a thrilling
spectacle of the most frightening kind. As usual it will bring from you
the most heart-wrenching emotions, but we remind you why you've come. I
have travelled the world for many seasons, I have met people who were
witnesses to atrocities one can not even imagine, I have taken into
my ranks the people who wish to share with all the world the triumph of
their evil lives, who wish to show you that evil does exist. I remind
you, that you are here on this night, not to smile, not to laugh, but
instead to feel the pain of these poor souls. I remind you of your own
pains, or your own search for pain. I remind you that tonight you will
bear witness and I hope to fulfill your most unholy of unholy desires."

There was a noise behind the dark crimson curtain that was draped upon
the stage. A ruffle, an errant breeze disturbed the stillness of the
curtain. The host raised an eyebrow but paid little attention to this, as
if a ghost had passed but this man a ghost himself paid little attention
to such an expected phenomenon.

Suddenly the curtain raised and the host pulled his microphone to the
side, the thudding of the leaden base, the scrape of the wire, was dulled
by the clanging of the curtain as it rose.

Standing to the side now the host raised his arm as if an extension of
the curtain, "Behold the setting of a stable."

And it was a farm, it seemed, the classic stable scene. It was something
that stirred in some of those more feebly-willed something of a Nativity
Scene. Being that it was close to Christmas there was the sentiment that
this may be a parody of the Holy Birth.

Feeding on this easy parallelism the host chuckled, "We propose to you
that this humble stable was soon to be the setting of the Glorious
Moment, the Holy Star will shine down upon this and summon the birth of
the king of kings, the lord of lords, the sensation star of our worst
religion. Soon to be, I say, because if such a stable really existed the
night before Christmas the stable existed as well. And a few weeks before
as well. But such a stable need not exist always as such a holy place,
and we mustn't be fools for the ages and believe only good and godly
things happened there."

There was the sound of weeping then, it wafted in from the side of the
stage opposite that of the host. A boy was brought in then. He was clad
in a flimsy cotton smock, hands bound with a rough rope that reddened his
wrists. Seemingly of clean virtue, the boy was plainly unsure of himself.
Perhaps the boy was drugged, but he was clearly alert and concerned and
it seemed he wasn't at all. He looked pale and tired. He looked reluctant
but fully aware what was happening shouldn't really be. He was brought to
the center of the stage at the hands of two large guards. They were
massive men, dark-skinned, of olive complexion, they wore black vests and
tight pants, jeans, and black leather boots laced tight and high up the
shin. Dark sunglasses hid their eyes, their emotions from the glaring
light of the spotlight turned upon them now. And the boy was dashed to
the floor forced to kneal and trembled trying to see an audience that he
heard breathing. "Is my mommy out there?"

The audience laughed.

His mother was nowhere to be heard anyway.

"Mommy?"

But only a tragedy of laughter rose from the audience.

"This terrible scene, of this terrible play, is called: The Assumption of
the Virgin."

One of the men that had led the boy out there suddenly grabbed the back
of the boy's head and brought him up to the tight-clad package that
buldged in his jeans. He smeared the boy's tears where the shaft of his
seemingly tremendous cock waited. The other man, while the boy was
distracted with that, tore the cloth garment from the boy in one violent
movement and left the boy naked and pale and shaking in a sudden jerk.

"What do you want me to do?" The boy was unsure why the two men circled
around him, towering over him, they were easily three or more inches over
six feet tall. The two men grinned but said nothing, the script was not
one of words, it was clear, it would be a pantomime of perilous discord
for sure.

Suddenly one of the men removed from his jeans a cock easily eight inches
long. It swayed before the boy's face. Unsure of what it is boy of his
age is to do for these men of such dominant stature, the boy reached out
with his tightly bound hands and took into his clutch the cock presented.
The man thrust his hips at the boy and looking up at man he understood
that he was to put the cock in his own mouth. Which barely fit, the other
man reached down and pulled the jaw open wider and then the other man
forced his cock in. The boy choked. The audience hummed with boredom.
This is what they came for?

The other man, the man holding the jaw, removed then his cock, of greater
size easily compared to the other, and the boy then put his lips barely
upon it before he was choking upon it. The boy was suckling one, then the
other, for a few turns on each before suddenly one of the men started
urinating on the boy and soon after the other followed. The smell of the
urine was potent, it reached the audience and cast a spell on some of
them. One of the men farted and its sounded stirred an even deeper sense
of debauchery in some of the members of the audience. The boy swallowed
some of the piss shot at his face, the boy choked and was forced to take
the surge of urine, forced to wear it all over his pale body, the dirty
stench of it, the hot acidity of the shame.  The rubbed his own body, he
looked down but one of the men smacked his head really hard and the boy
looked up, mouth agape, and was then forced to take into his mouth the
lesser of the two big cocks waiting for service.

The boy gagged on one then the other then for another short interval
before he was coaxed to stand and then bend over. Taking one cock in his
mouth the other man placed himself behind the boy and rubbed his large
member along the crack of his smooth little ass. Vulnerability was
something unknown to the boy, he seemed unaware of what anguish
threatened his virgin hole. The crowd reeled at this. A trickle of
anticipatory applause summoned the ruthlessness lingering in the loins of
the larger-cock minion. He smiled at the audience, in a theatrical aside
manner, and then started the brutal thrust. The boy jumped when he sensed
the penetration beginning but the strong arms of each man held him still.
While his boy mouth was filled with the gigantic cock he cried and gasped
and tears streamed down his face. His legs trembled, as if he could
barely stand while he was being entered.

The host, through the microphone, could be heard clearing his throat: the
whole audience, as if dead to life till stirred by that sound, jumped and
looked at him, and then noticed that he was signalling to the stars to go
down upon their knees.

The boy was laid bare upon the floor of the stage, in the filthy puddle
of the early action. He cried clearly that it hurt, it hurt bad, it
really scared him, he was shaking and grabbing at the denim clad legs of
the man whose cock choked him more and more. Suddenly he threw up and
only a little string of bile escaped. The man in his rear pushed harder
and further and those close to the stage could swear upon on the
throbbing skewer there was evidence of an internal wound, blood, ruby
red: the glory, the gift of this art. The boy grew pale. Then slapped
across the ass, the boy became alert and wailed, bawled as the men fucked
him from either end. The man in his rear fucked him and grunted pulled
his member out to shoot a stream of semen all over the young man's back.
The boy was turned then, his arm bending and his feeble body used like
this was like a toy, like a prop. The other man then forced his cock into
the bleeding ass while the other man straddled his boy chest: while
getting the final fuck of his boyhood the first fucker shit upon his
chest, great heaping globs of filthy shit. Promptly the man fucking the
now-limp body pulled out and shot stream after stream over the
apparently-unconcious lad.

The curtain dropped and the audience applauded. But Bradford, always the
critic, decried the violence. "Merely porn, merely smut, merely snuff:
hardly a spectacle, hardly worth the innocence of a boy."

Maxim chuckled but the gurgling noise of his amusement was cut short by
the whine of the microphone being turned on, by the clearing of the
vampiric host's throat.

There was a whinny behind the curtain of what seemed to be a beast being
controlled, followed by thunderous clamour of hooves upon the hollow wood
of the stage.

"Our next offering then, the second of three acts: a parable of The
Sacrifice of the Lamb. But for this we require a particular breed of
innocence, a certain prescription of reluctance. For this we ask the
assistance of a member in our fine audience."

But no one could be heard rising to the occasion, only a muffled worry
for each person's dignity.

"If no one volunteers it can be safe to say I shall be required to throw
upon you a curse."

A voice could be heard suddenly and to Toddery's horror it was that of
his Judas-friend Bradford. "He's shy your graciousness, but I believe my
friend here would like to offer himself to your altar." Toddery cried out
that he wouldn't like to, that he shouldn't, that he couldn't, and with
one final burst of shame moaned that he wouldn't.

"You're a brave fool, a dysfuntional Abraham, to offer upon us your boy."

Toddery cried out, "My friend is drunk sir, he doesn't know what he
says."

"No, no, I'm sure I know what I say," Bradford jested, hoisting his
friend to stand by the collar of his beige cordorouy jacket. "He is eager
to please an audience, being the fine thespian he is."

"Come then, come upon the stage and bathe in the glory of this spotlight
young man."

"No! I will not."

Then the host spoke with a low voice, so low the microphone trembled and
the echo of his summoning stirred the shadows haunting the furthest
reaches of this hall: "Come to me child."

Strangely then the three friends who brought him cheered him, and
applauded and confused by his own unwillingness and yet somehow concerned
for his reputation among them, he finally, seemingly of will, abandoned
the safety of his seat. Assisted by the cold hand of the usher, trembling
a little, he was escorted to the stage. An assuring applause could be
heard.

He was brought into the bright light of the stage. He seemed pale and
worried. He could not see from this vantage the worried look coming upon
the face of the mad Violet Sky. He did not see the disdain expressed
wordlessly by Maxim who would never have thought to offer Toddery. Nor
did he see the grimace of Satanic delight that graced the face of
Bradford Dupuis. The host shook the young man's hand and, away from the
microphone now, was offered words of wisdom that the audience was not
privy to. Whatever was whispered into his ear was a strange thing to be
heard, for it soothed him uncannily, it calmed him, dulled him, somehow
it even intoxicated him.

The curtain opened then upon a setting like an altar cut from red stone.
A rough altar, without any particular icons, without any sort of idols to
be worshipped. It seemed to convey an ancient place, like something found
in forbidden forests far from this place, something far from this time.
Two whispy young men moved out to the stage from either side and removed
the layers of clothes Toddery had been wearing. The jacket, the shirt,
the belt, and then he stepped from his pants. His shoes, his socks. He
was then naked. He covered himself bashfully, though he had nothing to be
ashamed of for Toddery was notorious for being well-endowed. All his
possessions were removed to the side of the stage.

A third character in this play came out, a strong man like the beasts who
had raped the boy in the previous scene. This man wore the same style of
clothes, a black vest fastened taut about the pectoral muscles, the
heaving abdominals exposed, a belly there suggesting a pirate's girth.
His arms blazing with dragon tattoos that breathed fire up at his
shoulders, up around his neck. Dark sunglasses hid this man's eyes, his
emotions, and the audience could only assume his soul was protected by
these shades as well. The man's crotch bulged with a muscle of an
appendage that was comparable to those of the previous minions. The man's
boots made a noise upon the floorboard that seemed unable to stir the
naked young man from whatever spell he was under.

The man seemed of a soft nature at first. He caressed one of Toddery's
arms from the shoulder the hand, Toddery offered his hand to the man, and
the man took it. Standing behind Toddery then he stroked, just as softly
as the first arm, the full length of the other arm, and at the end of his
thick, callused fingers' journey down the arm, he took Toddery's other
hand. A magic trick of sorts, behind Toddery's back a small fastening was
performed, a faint drumroll heard, perhaps the hearts of souls previously
played with echoing their torment, the man turned Toddery around to
reveal his hands had been bound easily, tightly, and that there was no
escape.

The man led Toddery to the altar and lay him upon his belly. It was clear
then that his ass would be hoisted by the sheer angle of the altar, it
would present it to some buggering beast, whatever that beast might be.
The man consoled the trembling Toddery with kissed upon his lips, he then
went round to his rear and, spitting there, then removed his steady shaft
from its denim package and the audience moaned at the size of it. Easily
this cock was over eight inches, something that seemed impossible but was
true. A dagger, a machette, a sword ...

"Surely an angel will save this poor son of Abraham before he meets his
fate."

Foolishly Bradford announced, "He's a great lay, he can take it!"

The host scowled in the direction of Bradford, some might say he even
looked him right in the eye. But Bradford, not believing that any force
beyond the theatrical was afoot, merely laughed and sat down. Maxim
squirmed nervously. Violet Sky reeled like a lunatic about to be
delighted. The audience held its breath, some said prayers for the boy
who was taking their place.

The barrelling chest of the man at Toddery's rear was released from it
black-vested retraint and the man breathed in, filling his chest, making
it large and wide. Exhaling then it seemed he blew smoke from his lungs
and then he weilded his cock at the man's ass there, waiting for its role
in the sacrifice. Though one expected some disturbance there was none and
the man was fucked then brutally by the man with cock of more than eight
inches. Toddery whined and moaned and the man pulled out his cock with
shit upon it. The audience laughed. Whatever spell Toddery was under did
not save him from shame for he blushed and his brow furrowed with pain.
The man fucked him more and more and spanked the white baubles of his
ass, the sound ricocheting like bullets about the hall. Then suddenly
there was a whinny, then suddenly there was a thunder of hooves. And from
stage-right, from behind the man slaying Toddery, two black-winged
characters led a great black horse from the wings of the stage. A blazing
white star was pronounced on the foreheard of the horse, but otherwise
this steed was a velvet of pitch. It's long cock, having been previously
enticed to full size, was dangling between it hind legs. The horse kicked
the floor, the sound was so loud a woman could be heard gasping for air,
and then there was the din of her fainting and her escort could be heard
reviving her. Maxim turned to see the usher leading them out.

Maxim turned to Bradford, "They don't mean to fuck him with a horse do
they?"

Bradford, adjusting the throbbing member in his pants was unable to move
his stare from the scene on the stage, he merely managed a muffled, "I
hope so."

The altar was prepared in such a way that as the horse was led to stand
over Toddery, the angles and proportions were just right for the
plundering. The horse, the poor horse, seemed oblivious to its role in
this game for the idle rich, but it seemed Toddery was even more
uncertain till suddenly the horses front legs were fully straddling his
frame. The spell seemed weakest then, and he moaned, "No, no I don't want
this, it'll kill me, it's going to ruin me forever. This should be you!
This should be you!" Bradford seemed oblivious to the fact that to whom
Toddery was shouting this wicked curse was himself, not the audience in
general, just him, just Bradford Dupuis.

The angels that had led the horse there had pet this shimmering pelt of
the horse, calmed him and took the long purple shaft in their hand and
steered it at Toddery's ass. There was a sheen upon this horse's cock
that suggested it had been thoroughly greased beforehand.

Maxim was so nervous. He turned red in the face. He gasped. He admitted
that he couldn't stand it. "Stop this madness," he yelled. Violet Sky
hushed him. Bradford was wrapped up in the glory of this scene.

Suddenly, blindingly, a great scream was resounding about the whole
theater, a passerby even noted a strange sound emanating from this
darkened theater thought long-abandoned to rats. The horse's cock was
forced into the tiny anus, forced to the point of tearing Toddery,
tearing him mercilessly. The laughter of angels could be heard. The host
himself was even moved to a state of hilarious appreciation of this pain.
While they fucked him with the horse's cock the large-cocked man forced
his cock into Toddery's mouth, muffling him that they may not alarm the
neighbors, the authorities. They fucked him with this horse's cock till
the horses shimmied and shook and tossed out loads of creamy horse cum
into, onto Toddery's bleeding brutalized arse. And then the curtains
closed and the audience applauded.

"Now that's entertainment!" Bradford exclaimed.

Maxim mumbled, "You monster."

Violet Sky was now silent, unflinched, barely moved. "Well I thought
there'd have been more." She said such a thing so casually, affirming the
love Bradford had for her.

The laughter of the angels could still be heard from behind the dropped
curtain.

Maxim could be heard, "Where is our friend, gave us Toddery back."

The host chuckled into the microphone, "Your friend, insolent bastard, or
what is left of him, can be retrieved from the stage-door."

"After the show," Bradford said.

Violet Sky laughed.

"Now, you deprived fiend."

Despite the curiosity Bradford felt, the wanting-to-know of what that
third, certainly most terrific scene promised, the three of them began
their departure from the bowels this theater they disturbed. As they
neared the door Bradford hesitated, he listened as the host described
that third scene, the final of the three.

"I ask of you one question, to set the tone for this most gruesome of
life's promises: Was Christ borne upon our history only die for nothing?
This third scene is the true Passion of Plays: entitled, Crucified with
Thieves."

"Please!" Bradford begged.

"No more," Maxim dragged his devilish friend out onto the street as the
audience nervously greeted what was surely a fatal moment in art itself.

The street was wet and there seemed to be an abundance of rubbish in the
alley beside the theater. A cold wind blew and Maxim called out to his
friend, "Toddery, where are you?" There was a faint stir among the
rubbish.

They found him naked but for the blood stained smock that had most likely
wrapped the boy they'd seen raped for the pleasure. They found Toddery
shaking and blurred by this nightmare he was waking from, dark rings of
tormet under his drooping eyes, painted under his drooping lids by this
fateful event never to be removed. His hair would now turn startlingly
white, and he would never talk sense after this night, he would never be
the same: his family would lock him up in an expensive home for
idle-rich's most lost of souls, none of them certain what had happened
upon this night.

But one last thing of solid sense would pass through these lips of his, a
curse: "Bradford Dupuis, you have lost all your chances. You will never
know what love is: and just when you think you do, just when you think
you are allowed to know what that monstrous host whispered in my ear, you
will meet the end of your heartless days, your loveless nights."

-- -- --

Many years would pass. Many loveless, bone-chilling years. While Maxim
and Violet Sky had been wed and lived happily, Bradford still labored
with his torments and never knew what they had. His house seemed
permanently a display of all his unrequired attempts to find someone to
share his wealth and idleness. At first he remained a man very much the
same as that which had been invited to that theater, that night in the
dimly flickering past. He would entertain prostitutes, drug them and fuck
them while they slept, he would fuck them raw, fill them with his, shit
on them, piss on them, tie them up for days. He would fling money at the
desperate and watch as they scurry like frightened little mice in his
cat-paws. He would make connections to people who could provide him with
sins, younger and younger, more and more, never less than what he wanted,
but never more.

He lived on a street where prosperity overlooked the avenues. Companies
built rows of homes and advertised them with glowing brilliance, "Raise
your families, see the generations, promise yourself a wealth: a way of
life." But these homes were soon abandoned, their owners finding wealth
in other parts of town. It would seem the mansion at the end of this
suburban street was the epicenter of a great gloom that their proximity
to forbid them any goodness, any luck. So the houses were left to
squalor, to hopeless refugees who got their roof for dirt cheap. Diners
closed due to a lack of people willing to look upon the dark street, the
lights along the street flickered, cats fought, children were to never be
heard.

Burrowed deep in his catacomb he drew the curtains to what attempts the
sun made to shine, he cursed his maids and threw plates at the cooks, no
one was pleasing him, nothing was clean, nothing had taste. It was the
worst of his life, he had reached the most decrepid of a man's being.

Still, in his dreams, he'd hear the screaming anguish of the young
Toddery, but he couldn't help himself: in his dreams he was one of the
dark-winged angels, massaging the gallant steed's cock till it spewed
holy semen into the bloody arse of his sacrificed friend. And he'd awaken
to a lonely life: summoning his connections to bring him something to
help him. As quickly as it could be done, a boy would be delivered and
he'd have that boy, just like the others, and when done with him would
dispose of him, heartlessly, lovelessly ignoring any pleas for food, for
money, for help.

Then one winter night, during a blizzard that had frozen the town solid,
the connections he'd made were unable to come to his call. The maids had
abandoned him. The cooks were not there to spoil his appetite. He
wandered the halls of his lonesome palace at the end of his abandoned
street. In other places merrier times were being had as it was perilously
close to Christmas Eve. He rummaged like a starving vulture through an
exhausted kitchen for something to eat, finding himself without anything
of savory delight he submitted to the feast of a mere apple. Bored then
he went to the library and found himself scanning through the remains of
his better days, the copies of criticisms of artists his words prevented
from knowing any real fame. He never rued anything, in fact his most
delicious demolitions brought to his face a strange sort of smirk like
the grin on a gargoyle. And suddenly, he came upon the review he wrote
for a show that would be the undoing of his own career, that dynamo
performance that had been awarded his accolade, in which he provided
whole-hearted dares to find a floorshow that could compare: that show
that had been the undoing of his friend Toddery Johnson. He never rued
anything, but there was something terrible that happened upon him after
the writing of this review, his editor had told him that never had such a
show come to town, that the theater in which he dared suggest it had been
played had been the breeding place of rats, nothing more, and abandonment
of this town's entertaining past. He'd insisted he'd been there, he
emphasized the triumph of what he'd seen, and listening to the terror the
critic described with such elation the editor was made distinctly aware
that Bradford Dupuis, the unwavering, detestable art critic was in fact
mad, that all the careers he'd ruined were perhaps ruined in vain, and
was moved to fire the man on the spot.

Suddenly there was a knocking upon the door. So late in this snow-driven
night he shivered and wondered who it could be. It seemed in another life
he had been promised a visit from his loving friends Maxim and Violet
Sky, but that had been days ago now, he'd allowed himself to believe
they'd moved on and weren't ever to visit him again. The knocking
persisted. There was a sense of loneliness all over him, he was a statue
of his former self then, frozen by the time he'd been alone in his cave,
and as if this disturbance were a hand on the drapery that he was under
he hesitated to believe that it could be true, that he could be saved.
The knocking resounded, the ripples of it moved through the halls of the
house and found him and the drapery was removed and he moved himself then
to the door to answer, in a great swinging effect, expecting to find
friends he only found strangers.

"Help me please," an older man said, a man that was wiry and cold and
wrapped up in a stinking coat. At his side was a boy, trembling and
clinging to the man's leg. "We're hungry and this blizzard has shut off
the power in our home and I saw the lights were on here, you must have
heat, maybe just a little something to eat."

"I don't allow strangers in my house," Bradford recited, sticking to the
script he'd used a million times.

"Please, we're so cold sir, desperate. I'll give you anything once this
storm has cleared."

"I don't like strangers in my house," Bradford clarified.

Suddenly the boy, whose very flesh was turning blue from the cold, looked
up at him with such sweet, innocent eyes, and from his pathetic hood
moaned something about being hungry, cold, wet, tired.

The boy seemed to be the key of course, and Bradford removed the barrier
to his house and they entered through this portal to find it so warm,
smelling good, like a home. As they stomped snow from their boots the
father said, "We'll not bother you long, just till the storm stops and
then we'll move on, I promise, then help will come and the power will
come on and we can go home again, we'll have food to eat then." The boy
looked strangely at Bradford, the boy almost smiled and Bradford melted
helplessly then. The boy thanked him, removed his coat and revealed a
frame that inspired thoughts of a most sinister kind.

"Your kindness will be repaid, I assure you," said the father.

"I'm sure it will, I assure you."

Suddenly Bradford became a gracious host, a disguise that he didn't wear
well and it was strange for him. His movements became awkward as he
attempted grace, but loneliness will do that to a person.

"Please, please, get out of those clothes. Strip right out of them, I
don't want them anywhere near the furniture."

"Um, sir, please, I assure you we can be left alone in a room to change,
if you have something for us to put on."

"No!" He yelled it, belched it, barked it. Then more calmly he said, "No,
no, here, we'll go in here, to my drawing room and I will draw the
curtains and I will give you blankets to wrap in, but I don't want you
alone here. Who knows what lurks in this lonesome place."

"Daddy?"

"It's alright, it's alright, he's most kind to allow us in son."

They went into the drawing room then and found it to be almost stifling
hot. A fire was burning in the hearth and a portrait hung over it, its
oil paints seeming to ooze, the couple portrayed in it melting in the
heat of the room. The two guests came into the room then and then when
they arrived in the center of the room the command was again iterated.

But the beauty of these men became obvious once they started to disrobe
and Bradford broke his first promise but being unable to look away. The
father, in the first place, was not at all as weak-seeming as he'd been
at the door, he had broad shoulders that were of an olive complexion, and
he had muscles from what must have been a lifetime of laboring with heavy
objects. His son, removing his clothes, was scrawny and effeminate, pale
and barely dressed at all. As the clothes were removed they stood with
their bodies exposed to the flame. The father had an enormous cock, it
dangled between his legs in a flacid state. The father covered himself
bashfully. He tried to not let himself blush but it seemed he was glowing
from being watched by another man. The boy, noticing this awkwardness in
his father stood close by and covered his own wee penis with a single
fist. The boy was no older the eleven, Bradford decided, and the father,
though burly, must have sired this lad at a young age.

"The mother," Bradford probed.

"She is rather preoccupied this evening."

A whore, Bradford decided.

Bradford was aflutter with this. He dared to push the bounds of his
hospitality by nearing the father and pressing his breath on the father's
neck as he sniffed for some remains of his intentions. The father stood
there and stuck out his chest with some unconquerable pride that promised
to protect his son. When they were close enough that the heat from
Bradford's body was arousing the nipples of the father, the father said
quietly, "Don't you dare touch my son."

"I wouldn't be so terrible sir, are you threatening me in my own house?"

"No. No." He apologized then, he went on to say that there are some
vicious people in this world and that they are humbly honored they would
break his rules to let them find safety in what seemed to be quite a
luxury.

"Fine then," Bradford said. He leaned down and tugged on the chin of the
lad and said, "Are you hungry? Shall we find you something to, um, put in
your mouth?" His eyes devoured those of the boy and the boy seemed
uncertain, he moved like a puppy might at the first sense of an
earthquake. Bradford's hand fell along the arm of the boy and tickled
him, and then poked between his apparently starved side, between his
ribs, "Come, we'll find something for you to wear first."

They marched then, Bradford leading the way and the two clasped together
behind. They marched up the stairs to the floor with the bedrooms and
with a flick of a switch came on the lights. Bradford led them to a room
that smelled of old clothing and he told them this was where his father's
clothes were, where he kept the clothes he'd worn as a boy, that surely
there would be something that fit them in there. He opened case after
case of glamorous antiquities, fashions from several decades, styles from
several ages. The child could be heard giggling as he pulled out a
feather boa, and Bradford said, "Ostrich feathers, a rarity these days."
The father told his son to find something quick, that he'd catch his
death of cold. Without blinking an eye Bradford watched as the two of
them rifled through the cases and bent to find things they'd like to
wear. The father's tan legs poked through the legs of a pair of trousers,
then his shoulders flared and he bloomed into a shirt, and finding a
jacket then he put that on too. His son found something quite similar,
like a schoolboy's uniform and looked quite smart in it. "I promise I
will get rid of those awful rags you wore in here, I promise to let you
keep these things. They make you look like twice the men that came in my
house."

"Thank you, sir you're too kind."

But as they left the room the father led the way, then the son and as
Bradford followed he let his hand lower upon the crown of the boy and
ruffled hair, tickled the back of his neck. The father noticed and gave
Bradford an angered glare but Bradford rejected this hostility with a
kind smile. Kind? Smile? The grin of a gargoyle, more aptly.

Then to the kitchen where there was not much to eat. "I'm short in the
area of cakes or deserts, but there is meat here, some fruit. My cooks,
they have abandoned me."

"With this storm, what with Christmas, I'm sure you've let them be with
their families."

He grumbled, "Of course, yes. Christmas."

"I'm afraid I don't know how to cook very well. You're free to fire up
the stove though, I permit you to use this room as one should."

The father then went about the preparation of the meal, he prepared
enough for Bradford too. It was becoming a fairly festive occasion; if
one took a chance to look in one of the windows one might think all these
people knew each other well, that this generosity being shared, doled
out, was a generosity among kindred spirits. In the next room Bradford
was amazed at the sing-song lightness of the boy as he danced around the
room. Bradford found cutlery in a cupboard and service for three, and
laid out it awkwardly, all the while eyeing the child as he danced around
the room. He found some glasses and some wine and teased the boy with
promises of some wine.

The boy was telling him things about him and his father, about how hard
they'd looked for help, about how hungry they'd become. Bradford turned
to put these crystal goblets on the table when suddenly the boy danced
his way around the table and they collided. A strange thing happened
then, for though the boy had bumped into Bradford and though the boy had
jostled him while he held crystal goblets, all had seemed fine till
Bradford had a wicked epiphany of sorts and dropped one of the goblets
and it smashed all over the floor ... smashed into a million peices. The
boy was instantly apologetic. Begging forgiveness the two of them lowered
at once to retrieve the larger of the shards, the stem, the pedestal.
When they grabbed at the pieces the boy pricked his fingers and a single
droplet of blood slipped from his flesh. The boy whinced and Bradford,
satisfied with this in a way, took into his icy talon this fleshy
finger, brought into his mouth and put the whole length of it in his
mouth and sucked it, blood and all, the length of it, while locking the
eyes of the boy on his own. Hidden by the table and the legs of the chair
Bradford felt safe then reaching out and cupping into his hand the head
of the boy and mesmerized the boy allowed him to be brought closer and
then kissed, and the boy's lips parted to the entrance of the
blood-dappled tongue of Bradford. They pulled apart then and Bradford
thought for a moment of that boy he'd seen raped, pissed on, shit on,
rendered unconcious. Could it be? No.

There was a clanging of silverware then, and the father came in the room.
They both stood, both looked guilty. The boy admitted, "I broke a glass
Daddy, I'm so sorry."

"Oh mister, I'll repay you the cost. I hope it wasn't too valuable."

"A toy, nothing really. It wasn't worth anything that you need worry
about." He look down at the floor, with his leather shoe he swept the
glass under the cupboard. "Don't even worry about the mess, I'll have
someone clean it up when they come in. Ahh! The feast you've made. Look
at this."

After eating the meal they'd made the father and son felt bloated and
pushed back their chairs. The father sat next to his son and he brought
the boy closer and pet his head as the young child started to quickly
fall into sleep.

While the child began to mumble about wanting to go to bed the
father conducted him to lay with his head upon his lap for just a moment.
"I hope you wouldn't mind if perhaps we stayed the night."

Surpassing his own expectations of himself, Bradford almost yelled, "I'd
not be able to say I've lived if you didn't spend the night tonight."

Laughing at the extent of his compliment the father admitted something to
his host, "You know at first I thought I recognized you, thought I knew
who you were, but I'm beginning to think that I was wrong. You seem like
a very nice man."

"Oh, sir, looks can be deceiving."

"I'm sure. But I -"

They locked eyes momentarily and Bradford instantly squirmed. There was a
distant thundering sound outside one of the windows that distracted the
both of them, a demonic sound that chilled Bradford to the bone, like
that of hooves on a hollow stage floor.

As if to assure his guest, or himself, "I'm sure it's just the snow plow,
they'll be working all night with this weather. Yes. The plow." He
coughed uneasily. "Now, no more of this, let's find your son a bed."

In one of the rooms at the far end of the second floor, there was room
that he sometimes let people sleep in. It was comedically called Maxim's
room, for reasons that are not of any value to this story. Maxim's room
was warm and inviting and there was much decoration that would seem
inviting. There were books on the shelves, curtains on the windows, a
painting on the wall by an uncle of Bradford's who'd disappeared in the
Amazonian Orchid Hunting Expedition several years before Bradford's
birth. The father brought the boy into the room and he lay the boy down
upon the bed and he kissed the boy's head and Bradford was almost moved
to tears to think of all the treasures and wealth he'd inherited from
lives that were lost to this planet, but how poor he seemed in comparison
to this pair.

Then leaving the door open just a bit he led his father back down the
shadow-hewn hall, down the stairs, through the foyer to that room at the
front of the house, the drawing room. The fire was dying there, but
Bradford threw another log on it, stoked the coals, and a crackling of
the wood invited them to sit for a moment. Bradford offered wine, brandy,
rye. The father insisted there wasn't anything he could want. Bradford
insisted that he couldn't sit without drinking something. Some
conversation. Some cigarettes. Exotic ones his friend Violet Sky had
purchased for him while honeymooning with Maxim in Egypt. They sat in the
drawing room for hours then, till very late in the night, till nearly
morning, and the more they sat the more they drank. Finally the father
relented, "I don't know how to repay you for this."

"Oh, sir."

"Call me Tom."

"Tom. I think you know what I could want as repayment."

His vision was blurry with the dim light, with the drink, he shook his
head, the father was disturbed by this.

"I want you to aide me in my loneliness."

"I don't know what you mean."

With that Bradford stood and moved over to the chair where the father
sat, one of those claw-footed, over-stuffed leather chairs by the fire.
Rubbing at the side of the man's head he brought his ruddy, bearded face
in at his crotch: he resisted.

"Please sir, I'm not that sort of man."

"Ah, that's all the better."

"Hey, I mean, you must be a smart man, I could pummell you ... I could
beat you senseless."

"I could call the cops sir, I could say I came home to find you'd invaded
my home, put on my clothes, helped yourself to my kitchen, my wine."

He thought about this.

"I know you're tired of running, that when you came to my door you were
desperate, I can see how strong you are, you are an attractive man, very
attractive."

The man stood abruptly, too quickly. He nearly fell over. Bradford
balanced him and caught him with a passionate kiss. The two fell to the
floor then. They started to grope at each other and their hands made
their way into their jackets, up under their shirts. Bradford was amazed
at the ferocity of this man's loving. It seemed his lips knew what
pleasure they could conjure. There was a fighting with belts. There was a
tugging at pants and a great triumph was discovered in their nudity.
Bradford suckled the tremendous cock and he purred upon the shaft while
the man coddled Bradford's head upon it, pumped his cock into the man's
throat. With eagerness and knowing that the father must be so tired of
carrying around a child, he moaned and sadly pouted that he would love to
take care of the father, that nothing would bother him anymore. The
father's eyes were lost in drunkenness. There was a delirium in this room
by the light of the fire. They were aroused and with each heave of the
body the crackle of the fire seemed to threaten to burn down the house,
the world, the blizzard be damned, didn't matter anymore. A feverish
sweat broke across the brow of the father and Bradford gasped as he let
the long cock of the man enter into his ass smoothly, like the tongue of
a demon enters into a balmy night's steam striking out at the sensuality
there.

Their bodies were hot by the fire and the light of the flames danced in
Bradford's eyes, licking at the soul there that still heard the noises
made in that long-ago night when Toddery had been forced to take the
horse. Toddery's body had been pale in that spotlight and this brought
passion to the loins that gripped at the father's sides, Bradford's ass
squeezed the father's cock, and moved the man to cry out and let loose
into Bradford the seed of his payment for this hospitality.

Subdued, like a rabid beast sated, the father moaned and seemed too
quickly to succumb to a deep sleep and Bradford, rising from the
exhausted body, smirked evilly and went to the settee by the window for a
blanket there. He tossed it down on the man there and told him that this
was not the payment he had in mind. "No, but you will give me this
payment now."

The boy was so small compared to the frightful size of the bed, the room
itself croaked and groaned, and a lost uncle's spirit sat helpless in the
corner, bearing witness to an event that he himself had visited upon a
nephew in a time long gone. A shadow crept in the room and the boy
stirred from his pleasantness and called out quietly, "Daddy, is that
you?"

"Yes son, it's your father."

The jacket fit him just so, the shape of him seemed right. The son
allowed the man onto his bed. The son allowed rolled over to face him and
the man leaned over and kissed his young mouth again. Instantly the boy
knew but was afraid to cry out. "Daddy, is it really you, it's so dark I
can't see."

"Hush now, be quiet."

And Bradford began his molestation without waiting for any permission the
boy may have offered. He put his hot hand into the boy's trouser's and
felt the wee boy-cock and squeezed it without expressing any emotion of
mercy. The boy was then pressed under his full weight as the man crawled
on top of him and ground his hips into the boy. The boy squirmed,
uncomfortable with all this weight. "Daddy, do want to make love to me?"

"Yes, son, I do."

The boy smiled. "I love it when we do this Daddy."

Amazed by this Bradford was ravenous with lust. He stripped the clothes
from the boy, tore the shirt from his shoulder, and grappled to keep the
boy still while he smudged the young flesh with the rough jaw of his
maturing grimace. Scraping the boy with the sharp beard of his chin. He
buried his nose in the boy's armpits and smelled there a smell of
adolescence. He sucked on the boy's cock and tasted the virginal issuing
of a triumphant first. He removed from his own trousers the lenth of his
sheathed cock and turning the boy over onto his belly in a singular
movement he swiftly presented his cock to the boy's puckering, pink,
rosebud ass. Spitting on himself, on the boy's whole, he told him, "Son
this will hurt only a bit."

Then the boy grunted as Bradford took his toll. The boy cried out but
Bradford covered his mouth and then hesitated believing he'd heard a
noise. Then recovering his prowess he resumed his assault and fuck
without relent for what seemed an eternity to the helpless boy. "Oh
you're so hot, child, I've loved you for so long." The boy said, "No,
you're not my father."

"I can be your father. Your father is gone and has left you with me, as
payment for my kindness, you'll be mine now. Tell me you love me."

"No, no, he would never leave me."

As he fucked the boy he forced upon him this lie.

"He didn't want you, you were a burden to him, but with me you'll be rich
and will be free."

"Stop stop, you're scaring, you're hurting me."

"Never, I want you to stay here forever boy, and you'll grow and known
all the wonders I know. You'll never want for anything else, as I never
want for anything. Just tell me you love me. I love you."

He flipped the boy over then and fucked him sternly, angrily, looking him
in the eye. He spit in the boy's face, "Tell me child, tell me you love
me."

Then leaning up to the man's ear, and wetting his lips for the telling of
it the boy said something terribly true into his ear, unheard by anyone,
no matter how closely they listened, unheard by anyone but himself ...
and for himself these were the accomplishment of a masterpiece ...

And finally he felt his climax coming. He felt it stirring in his heart,
a great thunderous clamor, a snow plow going by, a horse entering from
stage-right, and Toddery in his asylum cried out madly and without
relent, this was the day, the moment ... the triumph of the curse.

For as Bradford issued into the boy the seed of his payment, there was
great whack upon the back of his head and a terror of pain riddling every
inch of his being: and death seized the essence of life in his body. The
lost uncle sighed, no longer alone in the jungle of this mansion. And the
father regained his son, saved him, consoled him, applauded his
performace again, that boy sure could take it. The father, clearing
his vampiric throat, announced that now the third act was done, "The Show
is truly over."

-- -- --

When finally the day came that the snow was mostly melted, and the
neighborhood bathed in a glorious, prosperous sun, two visitors walked up
the path to the house and knocked loudly, as one is often required to do.
Maxim Pushkin and his wife, the impregnated Violet Sky, waited to be let
in. No one came to the door. The pushed their way in and found the place
utterly abandoned. Not a room had been touched in weeks, months, ages, a
lifetime it seemed. The pictures stared out from cobwebbed walls, the
ashes remained uncleaned in their cold hearths, the books unopened,
unread, uncherished. Maxim, knowing the house as well as the master of
it, moved about the rooms calling out the name of his estranged friend.
But nothing came back, not even an echo could be stirred here. Finally,
in the bedroom, that for reasons beyond this story was comically called
his room, there was the disturbed bed, nothing else but a single, quaint
seedy stain: ... nothing remained of the awful Bradford, but Violet Sky,
always a little crazy, a little mad, she said to the lonely room where
the ghosts of lost souls lingered unheard crying, "Now, that's
entertainment!"