The Gay Utopia

Map of the Gay Utopia

2007-12-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

Noah Berlatsky: Introduction

Anne Lorimer: Do Tibetans Think Iran Is In The Middle East?
opening dissent

Noah Berlatsky and Johnny Ryan: Alpha Male In...Don't Be Gay!
short, short illustrated story

Scott Treleaven: Art
mixed medium

Scott Treleaven: The Other Function of the Orgasm
1997 essay on how to make magic with sex and art

EyeofSerpent: Friendly Advice
erotic mind control fiction

Michael Manning: Under The Venusberg
Tannhäuser, Beardsley and the author

Alexander Stewart: The Animated Gay Utopia
a history of 1920s animation

Dame Darcy: Gasoline
screenplay excerpt

Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith
poem

Nishizaka Hiromi: Okami
manga

Bert Stabler: The Post-Gender Mystique
review of the exhibit Shojo Manga! Girl Power!

Dewayne Slightweight: The Kinship Structure of Ferns
comics

Edie Fake: Call The Corners
comic

Lelah Fern: Your Golden Sun Will Shine For Me
gayness, Restoration, and romance

Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness
brief defense

Lev Olsen: I Would Like a Large Lobster
excerpt from the novel You Were Never Lovelier

Kinukitty: Let's Get It On
slash fan fiction based on the anime Weiss Kreuz

Vom Marlowe: Girl Yoji
slash fan fiction based on the anime Weiss Kreuz

Julia Serano: Performance Piece
the problem with gender as performance

Paul Mullins: Art
drawings

Ma Rainey: Prove It On Me Blues
song lyrics

Rebecca Field: Militant Homosexual Dress
dress designed for a dyke march

Lilli Carré: Art
drawings

Tabico: Adaptation
insect-sex-zombie apocalypse

Noah Berlatsky: Fecund Horror
Carpenter's The Thing, Cronenberg's Shivers, and Tabico's "Adaptation"

The Giant Squid: My Time In The Gay Utopia
ask The Giant Squid

Bert Stabler: Bottomless Anus of Perfected Wisdom
digital art

Neil Whitacre: Wild Countersuit
declaration with pictures

Eric Berlatsky: Lone Woolf and Cubs
Alan Moore, postmodern fiction, and third wave feminist utopianism

Suzanne Bachner: Fireworks
scenes from the play "We Call Her Benny"

Noah Berlatsky: Privileged and Clueless
a review of Jennifer Baumgardner's Look Both Ways

Jennifer Baumgardner: Fruitopia
a reply to Noah Berlatsky's review

Kinukitty: In and Out
manporn for all

Rebecca Field: Queer Utopia Installation
decorated shrines

Ariel Schrag: Wandering Hands
comics

Paul Mack: He Lived Above Two Lesbians
images from a risqué children's book

William J. O'Brien: Art
mixed media

Paul Nudd: The Love-Chutney Drawings
product illustrations

Bert Stabler: The Glory and the Hole
closing synthesis

The easiest way to find what you're looking for in the Gay Utopia is to use this Map page which lists all the contributions in the forum. You can always find a link to the map at the top of the page, right under the banner.

The Map lists all the forum articles in order. If you wish, you can start from the Introduction and use the onward button at the bottom of each post to read all the contributions until you get to the last one. Each post also has links to related pages at the end, so you can wander around the site non-linearly, if that's your preference.

A list of all the contributors with biographic information and links to their websites is on the Inhabitants of the Gay Utopia page. You can also find links to contributors websites at the bottom of each post.

This forum is self-contained -- though it's nominally a blog, it will not be updated. However, do please feel free to leave comments. You're also welcome to contact me personally: noahberlatsky at hotmail.

Adult Content Warning

2007-12-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

The gay utopia includes adult content, images, and links. If you do not want to view such material, please do not browse the site.

Inhabitants of the Gay Utopia

2007-12-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

Suzanne Bachner is an award-winning playwright and director and a member of the Dramatists Guild. Plays include the Off Broadway hit, Circle, the cult comedy, Icons & Outcasts, and the interactive sex farce, BITE. Her new drama, We Call Her Benny, played to critical acclaim as part of the first-ever FRIGID New York Festival and will move uptown to The Michael Weller Theatre in April 2008. Her website is here.

Jennifer Baumgardner is a popular magazine writer and the author of four books, including Manifesta and Look Both Ways. She lives in Brooklyn with her three-year-old son, Skuli, and is working on a documentary about rape. Her website is www.soapboxinc.com. Her page is here.

Eric Berlatsky is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University. He resides in Boynton Beach, FL with his wife Jennie, daughters Katie and Julia, and cat, Willow. For information on his academic "achievements," see his website.

Noah Berlatsky is a cultural dilettante. He is the editor of this forum. His blog is here.

Lilli Carré was born in Los Angeles in 1983 and has since moved to Chicago, where she's lived for the past six years. She makes comics and animations, and otherwise works as an illustrator and at a movie place. Her website is here.

Dame Darcy, the cartoonist of Meat Cake comix currently published on Fantagraphics is working on a graphic novel and feature film entitled Gasoline, (among other art/music projects). She lives in NY and LA. To contact her go to damedarcy.com.

EyeofSerpent: Born on the planet Earth in the late part of the 20th century, the author entered genre fiction in October 1999 with the notion that the internet needed more character-driven erotic fiction. Alas, nearly ten years later, it still needs more. Her website is here; her story archive is here.

Edie Fake is notoriously morally bankrupt and has an insatiable appetite for destruction. He lives in San Francisco where he is currently apprenticing in a tattoo shop. In the Spring of 2006, Edie performed in the PeaceCore Book Tour across the whole country with collaborator Dewayne Slightweight. In 2007 he and Dewayne unveiled a new work called “Rainbow Dawn” at Art In General in New York. He draws the queer mytho-log of Gaylord Phoenix, the food fetish zine Foie Gras, the comic Rico McTaco and the recently completed zine Unisex. His spirit animal is possibly a “rainbow colored weasel” and he is a Virgo-loving virgo. Both errorless heiress and myopic neurotic, he potentially has an FBI file and unreliable psychic ESPs. His old internet haunts are www.ediefake.com and ediefake@hotmail.com and he loves to trade.

Lelah Fern lives in Philadelphia. She once traveled with Noah Berlatsky and two other dashing young men to the far flung islands of Scotland. One time someone in a pub called Lelah "the lady singer," and the foursome realized that the locals had decided that they were a traveling rock n' roll band! Cool! But Lelah can't carry a tune, and no one has ever called her a lady again. This is her girlfriend's food blog for which she took the photographs.

Rebecca Field is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Mathematics at Reed College, and at Cambridge University, where she collaborates with Ian Grojnowski. Her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago computed the Chow ring of classifying space BSO2n. She is currently computing with the classifying space for the exceptional group G2. Her cat Lute is loud, deaf, subcutaneous-injection-dependent, and allergic to crunchies. But Lute, for all his faults, is exceedingly furry, plus his idiopathic vestibular syndrome produces a chronically winsome head tilt. Rebecca owns many pieces of rusty metal, and her wedding ring has a whopping great hunk of citrine on it. She and Anne Lorimer were married on May 20th, 2004, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Aide-de-Camp to Ivan the Terrible, covert adviser to Mao Tse-Tung, chief chef for Rasputin, secret lover of Francois Mitterand, Untier of Knots to the Burmese Ministry of the Interior and Tongan Prince Taufa'ahau Tupou II, and long-time advice columnist--the Giant Squid had many careers prior to joining the Poor Mojo's staff in 2000. He quickly rose to Editor-in-Chief, and the Almanac(k) has flourished under his magnanimous rule ever since.

Kinukitty lacks the discipline to even write a proper bio. Is it wrong? Her website is here.

Ursula K. Le Guin has been writing about gender and utopia (among other topics) for more than thirty years. Her writings include The Books of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, and most recently, Powers. This is her website.

Anne Lorimer is a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at Reed College. In 2007, her article ‘The Cockpit’s Empty Chair’ appeared in the Teachers College Record, and her article ‘Raising Spectres’ appeared in Exhibition Experiment (New Interventions in Art History), edited by Paul Basu and Sharon Macdonald. Her research interests include mass media production and reception, forms of agency generated by anti-sweatshop and fair trade movements, and the history of capitalist spectacle in Chicago. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, and is currently revising her ethnography of linguistic and material practices among Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry visitors and staff, Reality World. She and Rebecca Field were married on May 20th, 2004, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Paul Mack is a visual artist and art educator working out of his garage. He is currently in exile in Arizona. He can be contacted at pjmack38@netzero.com.

Michael Manning is an animator, illustrator, tattoo designer and comix artist/writer. His best known works include Inamorata (Last Gasp) and The Spider Garden and Tranceptor graphic novel series (NBM). His artwork has been featured in galleries and museum exhibits both locally and internationally. Born in New York City, Manning studied film and animation at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts. He began self-publishing comix in 1987 while working as an animator/director of short films and music videos. A California resident since 1991, Manning currently lives in downtown Los Angeles. His artwork can be seen at www.thespidergarden.net.

Paul Mullins has busied himself for over a decade with producing 2D output centered upon his dissection of the rural American male animal. In work that over and over revisits things like flexing, fighting, fishing and fucking, an interested viewer could observe a small town guy who tackled but could never figure the class setup that awaits the aspirant in art. Mullins' work is and has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, etc. He is Associate Professor of Art at San Francisco State University. His work can be viewed at several gallery sites, including Heather Marx Gallery and Nathan Larramendy Gallery.

Nishizaka Hiromi. Born and raised in Kumamoto, Hiromi won the Yamato Waki Award in the Manga Koshien Book Version contest when she was a junior in high school. She graduated from Kyoto Seika University's Department of Comic Art in April 2007. "Okami" was produced as a play, directed by Kalma Streun, at the Thalia Theater in Halle, Germany, in May 2006. Her homepage is here.

Paul Nudd is a prolific maker of drawings, videos and collage. His most recent solo exhibitions include "Pus Lust" at Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn (2006) and "Green Slug & Wet Filth: a Dog's Dream" at Bodybuilder & Sportsman in Chicago (2005). He curated two shows this summer, "The Paul Nudd Curatorial Experience" at Western Exhibitions and "KlUsterCRUsTS" at BSD. The Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago will be exhibiting five new large scale paintings in May, 2008. Paul Nudd received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001. He divides his time between Chicago and Cicero, Illinois. His website is here.

William J. O'Brien is an artist who lives and works in Chicago, Il. He spends most of his time making drawings, masturbating, eating curry, and praying to various deities. His website is here.

Lev Olsen is a writer. He lives in New York.

Ma Rainey was one of the great early female blues singers. More biographical information is available here.

Johnny Ryan was born in Boston in 1970. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife. His website is here.

Ariel Schrag is the author of the autobiographical graphic novels Awkward, Definition, and Potential, which chronicle her years at Berkeley High School. She was a Staff Writer and Story Editor for seasons three and four of the hit Showtime series, The L Word, and wrote the screen adaptation to Potential, which is currently being developed into a major motion picture by Killer Films. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster will publish Likewise, chronicling Schrag's final year of high school, in Fall 2008. Her website is here.

Julia Serano is a writer, spoken word artist, biologist, trans activist, and author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Her writings have also appeared in the anthologies Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution, Desire: Women Write About Wanting, and Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. Her website is here.

Dewayne Slightweight lives in Chicago and makes drawings, music, and sculpture, often combining these into participatory performances with comic book souvenirs; his newest, "I Want to Know the Habits of Other Girls", premiered at Gallery 400 in Chicago and Orchard in New York. Other recent activities include making a chair out of vegetables at Art in General with Edie Fake, singing medleys at an old folks’ home with the Chicago Boys Choir, doing a human slide show with Sadie Benning, playing bass in the band Mayor Daley, and drawing comics for The Skeleton News.

Bert Stabler first corporeally manifested in a block of quartz within the wall of an ancient Zuni cryogenesis pit deep in the bowels of Arizona circa 700 BC, but was not discovered until his accidental release by trigger-happy eco-tourists in the years of America's mid to late innocence. He studied under and then feasted on the carcasses of sundry tenured polyglot dilettantes. After making his fortune in mind control videos and nutritional supplements, he was vanquished by a blinding light, and now speaks through dancing wasps and the rings of rotten trees. His website is here.

Alexander Stewart lives in Chicago, Illinois. His artwork involves animation, analog technologies and the materiality of media. His 2005 experimental film Errata has screened at film festivals and galleries in the US, Europe, and Japan. Alexander currently teaches at DePaul University, and curates work at Deadtech and Roots & Culture galleries in Chicago. His website is here.

Tabico is the pen name for a dubiously prolific author of mind control erotica. The woman behind the name is an academic biologist residing in Southern California. Her story archive is here.

Matt Thorn is a scholar of sequential art, best known for his work on shoujo manga (Japanese girls' and women's comics) and his translations of such manga as Ranma 1/2, Banana Fish, A, A', and They Were Eleven. He is an associate professor in the School of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University. His web site is here.

Scott Treleaven lives and works in Paris. A new catalogue of his collages, films and sculptures has recently been published, entitled Some Boys Wander By Mistake. The book features an interview with Jack Pierson, an essay by Terence Hannum and five new poems by Dennis Cooper based on the work. His website is here.

Vom Marlowe lives in Missouri with her very large, very German dog, Pookie. Her website (such as it is), is here.

Neil Whitacre lived in Milwaukee and Chicago from 1996-2000, then moved to Miami and the Everglades and then New York. He now lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Naomi and 5 chickens that reside in the front yard in a blazing pink coop. His website is here.

Noah Berlatsky: Introduction

2007-12-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

The gay utopia is an imaginary future in which gender, sexuality, and identity are fluid and in which pleasure is unregulated by either external or internal censors. It's a place where taboos dissolve and sublimation vanishes; every relationship is erotic, every action sensual.

The idea of the gay utopia is hardly new. Visionaries like Shulamith Firestone, Samuel Delaney, and Moto Hagio were talking about it decades ago. Ther term itself doesn't have as broad a currency, and I'm not quite sure where I first heard it used. But, in any case, both Bert Stabler and I have used "gay utopia" for some time to refer to politics, art, or writing in which the boundaries that separate pleasure, freedom, and self collapse in a polymorphous haze.

For me, the term "the gay utopia" is at least slightly ironic; I'm too much of a pessimist to believe that sexual freedom will actually bring about the millennium. At the same time, an interest in, or use of, the gay utopia unites much of the art and thought that has meant the most to me over the past few years. So, partially out of my own ambivalence, I wanted to put together a forum in which folks with various backgrounds, perspectives, and interests could respond to the gay utopia with enthusiasm, skepticism, both, or neither.

This symposium is the result. It includes writers (Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzanne Bachner), activists (Jennifer Baumgardner, Julia Serano), artists (Neil Whitacre, Paul Nudd, Lilli Carré, Bill O'Brien), comics creators (Dame Darcy, Johnny Ryan, Edie Fake, Dewayne Slightweight), academics (Matt Thorn, Lelah Fern), purveyors of online smut (EyeofSerpent, Vom Marlowe), a clothing designer, a singer, and a cephalopod. And as you browse this site, you will find the gay utopia located in Regency Romance novels, in capitalism, in shoujo manga, in alchemy, in animation from the 1920s, in LiveJournal slash communities, in the orgasm, in an explicit children's book, in an insect-sex-zombie apocalypse, in horror movies, on an alpaca ranch, and in the public appearances of Anne Heche.

Such a wide range of responses suggests that "gay utopia" as a term is enormously flexible -- or, less charitably, that it is incoherent. Several contributors leaned toward the latter interpretation. Lev Olsen for example, in the introduction to his novel excerpt, very delicately suggests that gayness and sexual freedom need not have very much to do with one another. More explicitly, anthropologist Anne Lorimer, literature professor Eric Berlatsky, and (in an e-mail) fetish artist Michael Manning all pointed out that there is nothing especially "gay" about fluid identities -- on the contrary, many gay people have quite stable genders and sexualities, thank you very much. Why, they variously asked, didn't I use "bi-utopia" or "third wave feminist utopia" or "polymorphously perverse utopia"?

I don't have a good answer to these objections. Still, I prefer "gay utopia." It's shorter and less technical sounding, which is a plus. But, more than that, I like it because it opens up possibilities. The term "gay" has been around for a long time -- it is tied to the past, to nostalgia, and to a whole range of identities, as Lelah Fern notes. And, in this forum, those identities peer out around the edge of the polymorphous bi fluid eroticism that I've chosen to refer to as "gay utopia". The quietly goofy affection in Ariel Schrag's contribution; the frustrated romantic comedy in Lev Olsen's, the bittersweet isolation of Ursula K. Le Guin's or Nishizaka Hiromi's, the eccentric domesticity of Rebecca Field's, the tactile blue-collar masculinity of Paul Mullins' -- those are gay utopias too. So, while it's probably true that "gay utopia" is not the most accurate term I could have used, it did seem, in part because of its ambiguity, like a good way to start a conversation.

In the gay utopia, one's personal obsessions are always fascinating to others. In the real world, things often don't quite work out that way. So I've been very lucky to find so many people willing to think about and engage with the topic of this forum. In putting the Gay Utopia together, I've had a chance to reconnect with many old friends, meet some new ones, and work with many of my favorite artists and writers. It has been an incredible experience, and I am enormously grateful to all the contributors who agreed to devote their time, their effort, and their genius to this project.

A couple additional thanks: Edie Fake, who I think is one of the absolutely best graphic designers in the world, very kindly agreed to draw the site banner and Adult Content graphic. Aubrey Beardsley also contributed some flowery elements (such as the one just above the last paragraph), and I wanted to thank him for having had the decency to die so long ago that I didn't need to ask his permission. Marcy helped me with color schemes, editing, and encouragement, and didn't threaten to divorce me even when I hogged the computer or kept using our Netflix account to rent horror movies which she didn't want to see.

Finally, I wanted to thank Bert Stabler, with whom I have been collaborating, in one way or another, for the last decade. As I mentioned above, this is really his forum as much as it is mine. He suggested and put me in touch with many of the contributors, edited my entries in the forum, helped me clarify my ideas, and provided bottomless wells of enthusiasm whenever my own began to flag. His essay, "The Glory and the Hole" sums up most of this forum's important themes and ideas. I've placed it at the end of the symposium, but it's also a good place to start.

Onward
Anne Lorimer: Do Tibetans Think Iran Is In The Middle East?

Map of the Gay Utopia
Inhabitants of the Gay Utopia
Adult Content Warning

Anne Lorimer:Do Tibetans Think Iran Is In The Middle East? Or: From What Direction Is This Utopia Gay?

2007-12-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

Hey Noah. Your symposium’s topic is timely and intriguing. But one thing troubles me: why the heck is it called gay utopia? Since it doesn’t belong as a utopian project to gay men, nor is same-sex orientation, male or female, what's at the center of its content. Rather, the title's resonance depends on the recent schoolboy sense of "gay" as embarrassing, not-quite-right, etc., and more generally on how gayness functions as a put-down in milieux in which you and Bert enjoy playing and ventriloquizing.

If I choose not to enter this frame, your gayness reads not as self-mocking utopian aspiration but as misguided minstrelsy, a
topsy-turvy misunderstanding of a world actual people are building. Let me illustrate.Last Thursday, Rebecca and I went to see Dan Savage speak at Reed. He talked for a while about how gay folks need to have less sex than they can (because 1970s-level germ-swapping isn't “biologically sustainable”), how he doesn't go down on men in airport bathrooms (other than his boyfriend) because he has too much self-respect, and how he'd like to instill in his fellow gay men a healthy sense of cooties. And in this regard he positions himself as a reformer, I'll grant you, rather than as speaking for his fellow gay men. But he also talked about how when he first moved to Seattle he had 5 lesbian friends, of whom 3 are now married to men, and 2 are men; and how this simply doesn't happen to his gay male friends.

(He then went on to say that he thinks this is a result of human genetic evolution –- you may be able to get Rebecca to write down for your blog a rant (with many chunks of anthropology) about why this is a dumb theory, if that's something you're interested in.)

Anyway, the point is, calling what you're talking about “gay utopia” rather than "bi-trans-androgynous free-love utopia" (or just "bi utopia", if it's brevity you're after) comes off as rather naively bigoted, because it suggests that the only way to have a gay utopia is for people to have more hip, postmodern flexibility & freedom in their sexuality -- as if there weren't folks whose set-in-stone identity is gay, or stone butch, or what have you.

And that's surely not what you meant, nor want to promote more of in the blogosphere.

A minor note: in your message you use as examples of “gay utopia” Susie Bright and The Left Hand of Darkness. Whereas plenty of Bright's buy-more-vibrators cheerleading encourages us to think of ourselves as living in a pomo consumer paradise, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is not a sexuality-is-freedom utopia, nor a gay utopia (hello, all the sex is het sex!), nor the sort of utopia that exists only as a hermetically sealed elsewhere, rather than being imbricated in explicit, politically problematic links to the author’s society. I actually found the book really confusing and disconcerting the first time I read it, because of how much it violated my philistine genre expectations. What made the book make sense to me was M. Suzanne Menair explaining it’s a tragic love story. And the tragic androgynous hero certainly isn't shown experiencing sexuality as freedom when he gets trapped during his change with a manipulative politician, nor for that matter with the human explorer. Your invitation mentions you “find any utopian project a little ridiculous”; but I reckon utopian projects are truly ridiculous insofar as they seek to hop into an elsewhere and pull up the rabbithole behind them, or think change will bring us into a socially unmediated world, where good intentions map transparently into good results, etc. -- and am glad to know Kroeber's daughter was smarter than that.

Cheers,
Anne

PS: Yes, actually, Tibetan monks who find themselves living in exile in northern India do speak of "the Middle East". The sun never sets on the British Empire!

©Anne Lorimer. Used by permission.

Onward
Noah Berlatsky/Johnny Ryan: Alpha Male In...Don't Be Gay!

Backward
Noah Berlatsky: Introduction

Related Pleasures
Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness
Rebecca Field: Queer Utopia Installation
Julia Serano: Performance Piece

Noah Berlatsky and Johnny Ryan:Alpha Male In...Don't Be Gay!

2007-12-20T04:00:00.000-08:00

Alpha-Male was bitten by a radioactive penis and gained the proportional speed, strength, and emotional maturity of a penis. He lived happily out of touch with his feelings until suddenly his dick-sense tingles and, wham!

The Gay Utopia arrives. A bunny offers him a flower from its anus; a burlesque troop of Hello Kitty dolls sings about bodies and pleasures; he is almost buried in pastel-colored anti-America flyers. Luckily, even the most playful subversion can’t daunt Alpha-Male! Fueled by his Alpha-testosterone, he tears several butterflies asunder and rapes a bunch of queer video projects.

But for how long can our hero keep it up in a world without big box retail? Plus he can't buy any meat so his farts don't smell right. That’s why it’s time for the ultimate Alpha-power: mind-over-ejaculate! Desperately, courageously, he thinks of Hugh Hefner and achieves one final orgasm. Then he makes his cum take the shape of a direct-market comic store. Inside are a bunch of dudes like Frank Miller and R. Crumb making manly comics with boring layouts about fighting evil and getting laid.

He decides to live there the rest of his life. Fuck the Gay Utopia!

The End.

Story ©Noah Berlatsky. Art ©Johnny Ryan. Used by permission.

Onward
Scott Treleaven: Art

Backward
Anne Lorimer: Do Tibetans Think Iran Is In The Middle East?

Related Pleasures
The Giant Squid: My Time In The Gay Utopia
Bert Stabler: Bottomless Anus of Perfected Wisdom
Paul Nudd: The Love-Chutney Drawings

Johnny Ryan's Website
Noah Berlatsky's Blog

Scott Treleaven: Art

2007-12-20T03:55:00.000-08:00

Hive, 2005

witchcraft through the ages (vii), 2007

heartworms, 2004

skulls + flowers, 2004

horror of the Holly King in Spring, 2005

other skins, 2007

Untitled (suitors), 2005

Grand Invocation I, 2004
All images ©Scott Treleaven. Used by permission.

Onward
Scott Treleaven: The Other Function of the Orgasm

Backward
Johnny Ryan/Noah Berlatsky:Alpha Male In...Don't Be Gay!

Related Pleasures
Paul Mack: He Lived Above Two Lesbians
Paul Mullins: Art
William J. O'Brien: Art

Scott Treleaven's Website

Scott Treleaven: The Other Function of the Orgasm

2007-12-20T03:50:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: This essay was originally published in issue #5 of This Is the Salivation Army, 1997.

All art is magical in origin…(it is) intended to produce very definite results.
-- William S. Burroughs

Two of my all time favorite publications are Simon Dwyer’s Rapid Eye books, and Vale & Juno’s classic RE:Search series. Together they exploded the lines between artistic, mystical, sexual and intellectual pursuits and featured one-of-a-kind interviews with luminaries like Derek Jarman, Brion Gysin, Kenneth Anger and Kathy Acker. To a Toronto boy who was spending his days hiding indoors listening to Psychic TV and New Model Army, Rapid Eye and RE:Search made the world seem like something that was going on somewhere else, so in 1996 I launched the first issue of my zine, This Is the Salivation Army. Having one leg in the art scene, one in the homocore movement, and both paws in the occult, it was my way of connecting these seemingly disparate ideas and desires in one forum. But it was more than just a zine -- it was a love letter to a mythical gang that I was consciously bringing into existence. I’d decided that I would imagine a new home, and then move into it…and it worked. Less than a year from the Salivation Army’s inception, I found myself at the helm of a youth cult.

As the zine and it’s devotees flourished, so did the rituals and motifs associated with it; wolfboys, pirate skulls, petty theft, scarification, homemade porn, etc. The editorial rants constantly reiterated that the key element in making anything happen, whether it be magick, art or activism, was the undiluted commitment of one’s energy. Moreover, This Is the Salivation Army underlined the fact that art and magick are old friends, even if they do get split up and thrown in opposite directions from time to time: art usually goes off to suck up to bourgeois commerce, while magick curls up in the lap of an appreciative fringe culture. Historically speaking, this alienation never lasts for very long, and art and magick soon make their way back towards each other like salmon returning to spawn. The zine was so potent and prescient that it briefly attracted the attention of a major soft drinks manufacturer, who came sniffing around for a new demographic. They knew we were on to something -- and if you want an up-to-the-minute example of this phenomenon, check out 19th century occultist Aleister Crowley putting in an appearance in the latest White Stripes video. Better still, at K48’s request I’ve included some notes below on how you can experience this coming rendezvous first hand.

Crowley defined magick as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.” If that’s true, then this is the single best and simplest magickal tool I’ve ever come across for manufacturing the kind of reality you want to live in: SIGILS. A sigil, which rhymes with ‘vigil’, takes two of the best elements of youth culture and combines them into a source of wish-fulfillment: making cut n’ paste collages and jerking off. Like a logo, a cross, or a pentacle, a sigil acts as a point of focus for the compounded, single expression of a particular desire. I first learned about sigils from the visionary writings of divine pandrogyne, Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV). His anti-cult par excellence, thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, had adapted their technique from the writings of illustrator & mystic Austin Osman Spare, who in turn had learned it from his nanny, and so on. The method is easy and effective and whether you subscribe to the occult, or happen to be more pragmatically minded like me, the results will speak for themselves. Here’s how to make your own:

Find a quiet time and place where you won’t be disturbed. Surround yourself with things that you find relevant to whatever your particular desire is: pictures, candles, incense, objects that have a personal meaning, etc. Some people find background music helpful, which is fine, just don’t use music that has discernable lyrics or words -- words are intensely distracting. You’re also going to need something to write with, and something to write on.

Now that you have a place to concentrate, take some time to relax. Chill out, breathe deep. Because you’ve created a particular mood and a safe space, your thoughts will flow more freely in the desired direction. Now concentrate on the intent of the sigil. This is the most difficult part -- what is it that you want? What would you really like to have happen in a perfect situation? Once you’ve focused on your desire, try to articulate it into a sentence. Don’t worry about ‘loop holes’ in the wording or being punished by some kind of ironic twist; this is for you, by you. Only you need to know what it means. For example, I could write: “I DESIRE MONEY FOR THIS MONTH’S RENT”. I could just as easily ask for emotional stamina, a phone call from a friend, a fuck, new clothes, travel, etc…the question is, what do I really want to channel all of my psychic, psychological, and physical energy in to? Use your intuition. And you can always make another.

When you’ve written down the sentence (eg., I DESIRE MONEY FOR THIS MONTH’S RENT), go through the sentence and eliminate the repeated letters, rewriting it without any spaces between the words. So our example becomes: IDESRMONYFTH. Now remove the vowels: DSRMNFTH. These remaining letters are the building blocks of your sigil. You’ve made a code out of a sentence that only you understand. It’s a compounded version of that original desire. Just as logos function as condensations of corporate ideologies, a sigil is the same thing, a symbolic analogy. Except this one is all yours.

Take the remaining letters (DSRMNFTH), and try to look at them not as letters, but as shapes. Copy out these shapes into a pattern or symbol, twisting and turning them however you like, just remember to use them all, and try to make the resulting symbol look ‘magickal’. There is no right or wrong way to do this, once again, use your intuition. Decorate it however you like with collage images (without words), photos, different media, colours and textures. Whatever best represents your desire. Work on it till you’re content. Some sigils come together in a few minutes, while others may take days.

Gathering up the power you need to make your sigil work is the most important part of the process, and it’s easier than you think. Sexuality is perhaps the most powerful drive in the human animal and, accordingly, it is also the biggest threat to established orthodoxy and control. This is why governments and religious organizations spend so much time attacking and trying to limit it. They know all too well that sexuality is where personal liberation develops; hence, it’s key to the sigil-making process. Now that you’ve got your symbol in front of you, focus on it. While you’re doing this, start imagining erotic elements blended with your desire. In this example, asking for money, I might imagine having sex in a bank vault, or with someone who has green hair or a ‘$’ tattoo. As it’s specifically about making next month’s rent, I might imagine bringing a ‘$’ tattooed boy home to my apartment and fucking him. It all depends on what works for you, and what your intent is.

Still focusing on the fantasy and your symbol, make yourself cum. Orgasm is the moment when your conscious mind short-circuits; all your psychological barriers come down and your ego is annihilated for that tiny moment. It’s an expressway straight to your subconscious -- the place where magick happens. During that vital orgasmic moment, what’s inside is outside, and vice versa. You’re planting your sigil in your subconscious where it can thrive. After you cum, use your spunk or your vaginal fluids to trace overtop or decorate the sigil -- this ‘blesses’ it with your sexual energy and makes it a special, intimate object. Think of it like this: a dildo is just a hunk of rubber, but the relationship you have with it makes it something extraordinary. Some people like to use blood and/or spit in addition to their sexual fluids. Whatever works for you is fine.

So…THIS IS YOUR SIGIL. Take a good look at it. When you’re ready, tack the sigil up somewhere where you’ll see it regularly. Like a charm or a talisman, it doesn’t need to be in an overtly obvious place, just somewhere where you’ll be aware that it’s there and that it’s working all by itself. Some sigils bring things right to your doorstep with alarming speed, and some take a lot of time to unfold. Sigils always benefit from level-headedness -- so, be patient. You can take the sigil down when you feel it’s done all it can, or keep ‘em on your wall as art.

During it’s 3 year existence the Salivation Army made dozens of sigils with incredible results (group sigils are especially fun), and while I still continue to experiment with them, I have no strict conclusions about how or why they work, all I can suggest is that you try one. And remember, it doesn’t have to stop with 2-dimensional collage. Grant Morrison, the famous comic book writer, is very vocal about the fact that his epic The Invisibles, is one huge, extended visual and textual mega-sigil. It took me ages to figure out that my zine was functioning in the same way. Even films and videos can operate as cinematic sigils, snowballing and propagating the energies of everyone who watches. So, like I said -- TRY IT.

CSigil #111, 2004

Art and text ©Scott Treleaven. Reprinted by permission.

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EyeofSerpent: Friendly Advice

2007-12-20T03:35:00.000-08:00

Corelle D'Amber walked into my office without fanfare and I returned her firm handshake. Quick observations; she was average height with auburn hair that saw more sunshine than I expected, she seemed mid-thirties, but I knew she was ten years older than that, and she really knew how to dress. Suede pumps, silver bracelets that matched the design of her earrings, and a white carnation in her lapel. She was sporting a very nice charcoal suit with a tiny pearlescent pinstripe. The patch over her eye was exactly the same material as her suit, even to the extent that the pinstripe was neatly aligned with her jacket.

I put aside the instant recognition of a personality obsessed with detail. I was hoping for Ms. D'Amber's help with this case. I just wouldn't have time to get to know the woman that Forbes magazine called "the most successful entrepreneur since Edison." She was a millionaire by thirty, a billionaire now. She could afford to indulge her own tastes.

I gestured, "Please take a seat, Ms. D'Amber. I'm so glad you could fit me into your schedule."

"Thank you, doctor. When we spoke on the phone, you suggested that Mrs. Roth would sincerely benefit from my meeting with you to discuss her case." She eased herself into the maroon leather chair.

To put her at ease, I sat in the twin to it rather than behind my desk. This was a woman who knew most business interaction from every angle. I didn't make the mistake of thinking that establishing trust with her would be a matter of quickly pushing the right buttons. Just getting her here was a plus. "Ms. D'Amber, how much do you know about Alice's situation?"

She didn't bat an eye, "I've worked with her husband, Bill for nearly six months. I've met Alice many times on my trips into town. We've even gone to dinner together. I don't know anything about why she's seeing a psychiatrist. I'd be surprised if you were going to tell me. Client privacy and all that?"

Sharp. "Yes," I smiled, "but Alice has also been to see two other psychiatrists by court order. I'm not sure what the court will do if a third one throws up their hands on her case. I'm hoping for some good news."

That got her attention. I could see natural curiosity working away beneath her surprise; "No one has said anything to me. Bill never mentioned this. What crime has she committed?"

"Public indecency. Multiple counts. It's not a serious crime, but the judge asked for a psychiatric review." I watched her for a reaction. Most women were actually very conservative about things like this. Women who 'broke the rules' were first scorned by other women.

"Alice? Hard to believe. There must be some mistake." She shook her head.

Good. At least she wasn't blaming Alice. Now for the hard part. "No. There is no mistake. Alice even admits to flashing in situations where she hasn't been caught. Ms. D'Amber, I asked you here to help because I'm sure Alice wants to stop. I've gotten her interested in changing her behavior. Part of that change involves asking for you to help her."

Now she did look wary, "Why me? Why not you, you obviously don't approve of this behavior?"

I laughed gently, "No. Of course I don't approve. This sort of degrading attention-driven behavior is a cry for help. Even Alice is very embarrassed by how far she has taken this. Her family and friends are aware there is a problem, if not how serious it is. Her husband is nearly beside himself with the stress. Alice has chosen you, I think, because you are a role model, someone of impeccable taste. Someone who is used to making decisions. Someone she knows is a respected woman."

"I still don't understand what help I could be." She didn't look pleased. Her face was showing all the signs of 'discussion closed'. She had a nice straightforward face, not pretty, but she could afford to take care of herself and she obviously had a sense for what worked for her. Simple. Almost an inner elegance. Just this short meeting and I could see why Alice had fixed on Corelle D'Amber as the matriarchal figure who's permission and forgiveness she needed in order to stop her increasingly degrading activities.

D'Amber was the closest thing I had found in Alice's mental landscape to an icon of authority. I was getting nowhere by myself.

That still made it awkward to discuss with a stranger. My planned response to Alice's need was unconventional and my credibility was in jeopardy if it became known that I was trying to get at Alice's fixation by exposing her case to an outsider. After months, of treating her, it seemed to me that I could crack her resistance to taking my help if I could enlist D'Amber on my side.

Alice always spoke of the woman with intense admiration.

I tried to complete the picture for the financier, "You really have to do very little. For instance, if you could meet Alice here during one of our sessions and tell her that you and I have talked things over and that we are in agreement as to how to proceed. That would leave you out of any of the treatment and give me the mandate in her mind to allow access to her motivation. Of course, none of this would ever be discussed outside this office. Your part would be simply validating my expertise with Alice." I crossed my fingers. Cracking Alice Roth's case after two specialists had failed would be quite a coup.

"I don't think so, Dr. Rand." She shook her head.

Damn. What else could I say to get her to see this? I had tried to make it as easy as possible. " Alice will be disappointed." I put plenty of emotion in my voice.

Suddenly, her chin came up. "I doubt that. To summarize what you are proposing; you're acting for the court to try and normalize Alice's behavior so that her husband and society can respect her once more. Yet her only crime is transforming her sexual privacy into public record. You want to do this by having me lie to her about my faith in your judgment. You don't know me or my character, yet you're willing to have me act as your leverage against your patient. You've hit an obstacle and rather than hard work, you're looking for an easy answer and a quick fix from a complete stranger. Having tricked Alice into believing that I agree with the court, you'll 'take over' and make her behave like a good girl. I must say I'm insulted you would propose such a thing." She gave me an edgy look. "You must be quite the stuck-up elitist prig."

I gaped at her. The calm and articulate delivery belied the venom of the words. She was like a restrained viper. Dangerous. She kept going on.

"A woman wants to show her breasts and paternal law says she's mentally deranged? What about freedom of expression? What about art? A husband ignores his wife's sexual tension for years and a woman psychiatrist rewards that by proposing theatrical therapy that will deceive the patient? Where is your feeling for Alice, doctor? I can no more validate your expertise than you can understand what dark things Alice has dared to look at in herself. Alice is a level beyond you that you do not understand. You are a child by comparison. My advice is loosen up, Dr. Rand."

That was more than enough, I stood up. D'Amber was a nut case and this was a mistake. Worse. She was making me angry. "I feel we don't have anything else to talk about then Ms. D'Amber. I will cure Alice without your help. I'm sorry your own problems have never been addressed in therapy. I won't see you out or thank you for your time. Good day." I went behind my desk without looking at her.

"Wrong again, Dr. Rand. You and I aren't done." There was humor in her voice, I glanced at her.

She sat there like a queen, staring right at me. There was something in her good eye that looked disturbingly like clinical detachment. I used to practice that in my mirror when I was in college. Fine. I'd just handle her with something she could understand. "We're more than done, Ms. D'Amber. If you don't leave my office immediately I'll call for building security. I'm sure you don't want that." My ground and my rules bitch.

She studied me as if I was an interesting case. "You'll find that the phone is temporarily out of order." She casually laced her fingers on the leather arm of the chair.

Oh my god. She really was a nut. I picked up the phone, "Sorry. I'm not bluffing." I didn't even call my receptionist, I dialed 911 directly. Then I realized the phone was dead. Sweat beaded on the back of my neck. How could that be?

I tried to get a dial tone once more. I didn't want to lose any momentum, I hung up and walked around her to the door.

She was still looking at the diplomas behind my desk. "The door mechanism is jammed. It won't turn. You'll also find that Della has gone to the ladies room, so even if you screamed at the soundproof door, there isn't anyone on the other side to hear you."

I froze with my hand near the door lever. Megalomania? If I grabbed it and it didn't turn, she wouldn't be a nut. I was very afraid of what that meant. If it did turn, I'd run down the hall until I found someone. It wasn't safe here at all. I was scared to do either. I surprised myself by calling for my secretary without looking away from the handle that was two inches from my fingers, "Della!"

No answer. Ohmygod.

I tried the lever. Jammed. It didn't turn at all. Cold sweat broke out along my back. I shivered and pushed the fear down and away, turned around and put the door to my back. I swallowed to steady my voice, assume the worse, assume she was psychotic, manipulate that aspect, stroke her, "I think we have misunderstood each other. Let's start over."

She turned around in the seat, smiling. Her hand went up, lifted her eye patch, ohmygod! there was-----------.

----Sex. Slutty outrageous sex. Making a public scene. Wearing slutty strap CFM heels to work. I never imagined how hot it might be. How I could ache for sex. You have to flaunt it when you want it that bad. Hot. Sweating. My crotch was getting soaked. Uncomfortable. I flushed with embarrassment. Corelle was going to make me over and display me like a prize cow. Bell collar. Brand on my ass. Black finger nail polish. Fingers playing with my pussy. I felt powerless. Malleable. So weak. So hot. The only things I could think about were my nipples and twat. Ugh, that word. Slutty. Twat. Hated that word. The sweat trickled down under my breasts. Tits. Boobs. If I took a step, I'd orgasm and never stop. Submissive. She had ruined me. A beast. A smart woman reduced to a fuck machine. I would look like a whore. Hot. So hard to fight. Hypnosis can not make you do anything you would not do while-----

An hour later, I was sitting on my desk edge when Della walked in. She gasped and put both her hands over her eyes. "Dr. Rand, I'm so sorry. I should have knocked. I didn't----" She turned around and rushed out.

So damn hot. Strange. It was quite a rush. Silly girl should have knocked. I pulled my hand out of my pantyhose and licked my fingers. The smell was so strong. I didn't care for the taste. Was I actually hotter because she had seen me? I pushed my skirt back down and stood up. The slick sensation made me feel strange. Why had she thought she could just waltz in here? This was embarrassing.

How was I going to explain this? Should I try? Damn. She had interrupted before I could get myself off. I was still horny as a---. Well. No matter.

I went and sat down and pulled out the file on Alice Roth. Just thinking about Alice suddenly made me hotter than before. That was strange.

I pulled my skirt up and pushed my hand down into my pantyhose and started fingering myself. I'd have to convince Alice she was sick without D'Amber's help.

A week later, the day's case load was finished and Della came in and told me Ms. D'Amber was in the waiting room. My feet were hurting from the white strap sandal heels I had been wearing and I wasn't in the best mood. "She has a lot of nerve not calling after ignoring our appointment last week. I suppose you should send her in, Della."

"Doctor?" Della looked baffled. "But she did---"

"Did what?" I looked at her raising my eyebrows. "Tell her to come in. You can go. I'll lock up."

"Yes, Dr. Rand." She went back through the door. She certainly looked confused about something.

Corelle D'Amber walked into my office without fanfare and I returned her firm handshake. Quick observations; she was average height with auburn hair, she seemed mid-thirties, but I knew she was ten years older than that. I had done extensive research on her in my plan to get her to help me crack the Roth case. She knew how to dress. Black leather pumps, no jewelry of any kind, and a black silk dress. The patch over her eye was exactly the same material as her dress, it gleamed from the soft light outside the windows.

I put aside the odd reaction that I didn't want to talk to her. For some reason, it really bothered me that she had skipped our earlier meeting. I really needed her help to make Alice's case another feather in my cap. Alice. Damn, why did I think of sex every time that woman came to mind?

I gestured, "Please take a seat, Ms. D'Amber. I'm so glad you could fit me into your schedule." Hmm. That was a little too cold.

"Thank you, doctor. When we spoke on the phone, you sounded a bit desperate." She eased herself into the maroon leather chair.

I had started to sit across from her, but her calm description of me as 'desperate' floored me. What in the world was she talking about? Desperate? "I assure you, my concerns are for a friend of yours. Someone I hope you are interested in helping." I sat on the edge of the desk instead, letting my superior height give me an edge in the conversation. D'Amber was watching me closely.

Sitting there. I realized I was wet. I was aroused, but something felt wrong.

She pointed at my feet with her chin. "Nice shoes. Quite daring to wear white after Halloween. Don't they hurt your feet? They look so high." She looked up at me. I shivered. Why did this seem dangerous? Why did I buy these shoes? They hurt. They looked like shoes a hooker would wear. I looked down at them. Dark red nail polish, white hose, white straps pinching my toes and four inch heels. Tramp. My pussy was even hotter.

I had to say something. "Thank you. I like to surprise people." I didn't want to talk about my slutty shoes. It was too damn embarrassing to trade fashion tips with a self-made millionaire. "They don't hurt at all. Latest thing." God. That sounded lame. What a bitch she was. Why was I on the defensive?

The embarrassment ran through me like a river of fire. My underarms were suddenly soaked. I was flushed. Impossibly, I was very aroused. Today was not the day to talk to a stranger about Alice's degrading sexual kinks. "I'm sorry you didn't call last week to let me know you wouldn't be coming. I'm afraid that I wasn't expecting you at all. It just seemed you had changed your mind about coming. Maybe we should do this another day." There, that should get her out of here.

"About coming? But I did come." She smiled. Sweat broke out on my thighs. Something was terribly wrong. I squeezed my legs together. I was wet. Horny. I realized I was rubbing my backside on the desk edge and stopped. I stared at her. She was doing something. Had done something to me. She was here to do it again. I reached around for the phone.

When I picked it up, there was no dial tone. Then I remembered Della coming in the office last week after Corelle had left and finding me with my hand buried in my twat. Oh, that word was vulgar. I groaned and my pussy gushed thinking about Della's expression. She saw me masturbating.

"Why don't you turn around, Dr. Rand? Or should I call you Bess? The phone isn't working."

I put it down. My heart was pounding. I looked for anything heavy on the desk that I could use as a weapon. With a start, I remembered the small revolver in the bottom desk drawer. I had to get around the other side of the desk, keep her talking. "What have you done to me? What are you?" I did manage to get around to the side of the desk.

"Well, I don't think you could understand what I really am. All I've done to you is give you some friendly advice. You didn't have any respect for the dark things we all carry around with us, Bess. You were using Alice to make your own career. I decided to let you look at your own darkness. Loosen up."

Loosen up? I was halfway around the desk. Loosen? Loose. Tramp. Whore. I didn't want to turn around. If I did something terrible would happen. I couldn't remember what but I knew not to look at her. No one can hypnotize you to do things that you wouldn't do while conscious. Horribly, I turned to stare at her against my will. She stood up and smiled. Her hand went up, lifted her eye patch, ohmygod! there was-----

----ohmygod. I was such a two-faced prig. I loved my wet pussy. I could admit that. Slutty sex. Public sex. Dark sex. All those true confessions. All those exciting clinical examples. Wearing Come Fuck Me heels all day. Staring men. Staring women. Dressing cheap. So hot. Aching. Wet. Horny. I got down on my knees before her. I knew I shouldn't. I wasn't a cow. Licking pussy on command. I didn't want to be milked. Hot. Sweating. My crotch was so slick. Can't stop. Mistress was going to make me over and display me like a prize cow. Bell collar. Black brand on my ass. Black finger nail polish like hooves. Fingers pulling my nipples, my pussy. Milk me. Malleable. So very hot. I realized I was licking her feet. God, it was so hot. So embarrassing. How could I be so slutty? My breasts hung down like small udders. The sweat trickled down my breasts. Tits. Jugs. I came when she tugged my nipples. I was like an animal. I was a-----

A nice morning. Della stopped when she walked in the office. "Dr. Rand?"

I looked up from sorting the mail. "Yes?" She had a half-smile on her face. It wasn't flattering on her.

"Nothing," she shook her head, still smiling, "there was a special delivery waiting for you in the mail this morning. Marked personal." She set it down and went back to her desk.

Why did Della smiling at me make me so horny? That didn't make sense. I picked up the package. Return address was my own street address. That made no sense at all. So disturbing. I didn't remember sending myself a package. I opened it up.

Oh. I took the bottle out of the plastic bubble wrap. Black pearl nail polish. The color was so awful. Mindless Goth girls swam into my mind's eye, all copying each other's look. I opened it and painted over one finger nail with four strokes. My nipples ached. The color was really quite awful. I did another nail to see if it would look better. I couldn't stop there. It was so stark. I was getting hot, just thinking about how noticeable it would be. People would stare.

Later, I took off my black fishnets so I could do my toes. When I was done, I couldn't imagine why Della hadn't chanced to interrupt me. I felt disappointed. I started playing with myself.

Oh. That was good. Visions of swollen tits and nipples spraying milk came to mind.

A week later, Della came in and told me Ms. D'Amber was in the waiting room. I flushed and my nipples started aching. "Tell her I'm not here. She can't make appointments that we agree to, I don't have to see her whenever she chooses to appear. Send her away, Della."

"Doctor?" Della looked at me like I was speaking Swahili, "She's been here twice before. You've been acting strangely, too. Are the two things connected?"

"I have?" I looked at her raising my eyebrows. "Such as?"

"Dr. Rand." She hesitated, "You're dressing oddly."

I felt my pussy steam and instantly become slick. Della was insulting me? Criticizing me? God, that turned me on. "What do you mean, oddly," I husked. Why hadn't I worn panties this morning? My crotch was soaked.

"You're wearing black polish and fishnet body stockings. A lot of your new blouses are really sheer. Your skirts are shorter than mine and you used to tell me to watch that. You said I looked unprofessional when I wore short skirts." She paused, then rushed ahead, "Doctor, you're dressing like a---."

I bit my lip and came. The orgasm was horribly intense. She was telling me I was dressing like a young slut.

Corelle D'Amber walked into my office without fanfare and stopped. I came again when I saw her. She was breathtaking. Commanding. Della started to say something else, D'Amber looked at her and she stopped trying.

I put aside the instant reaction that I wanted to rub my crotch on D'Amber's toes. I wanted to lie down on the floor and have D'Amber work her high-heeled toe between my legs. I was having some kind of breakdown. For some reason, this woman was a dream of realized domination and I wanted her to own me. Preferably right in front of Della. I was so hot now, that I could feel my thighs getting wet.

I whispered, "I'm so glad you could fit me into your schedule, Ms. D'Amber." Hmm. What would she do to me now? "Don't go, Della." I was of two minds, one wanted sex and the other couldn't think.

D'Amber looked at me, then back to Della, "How do you like the new Dr. Rand?"

"Just fine, ma'am," Della lied with a false smile on her face. I came again. Oh, the hot shame. I wanted it again and again.

D'Amber walked over to me. She gave me a wolf's smile. Hungry. She wasn't human, I realized. How had I ever thought she was a human being? She was something older and more terrible. "Bessy, I don't think you could stand another treatment. You're ready now. She reached into her purse and pulled out a collar with a heavy bell on it. She started putting it around my neck.

The orgasms ran up and down my legs, my back, my nipples were so hot, I started pulling on them myself. "Moo," I whispered.

Mistress D'Amber stepped away. Della stared at me in shock, her mouth an open oval. That was too much, I came again. "Moooooooooo." I groaned.

"Della?" asked the Mistress. Della tore her eyes from me and looked at her. I could have told her not to.

Well. If I had really wanted to. I'm sure I could have.

Della and I spent the afternoon in intensely heated sex. She punished me. She milked me and told me what a little cow I was. She worked my pussy and ass with a strap-on I had bought some days before. She suggested I get a boob job so my udders would have some real heft. Of course, I agreed.

Of course, I would pay for it. Yes, I loved being banged by my secretary. Oh yes, I'd love to do housework. Yes, I was such a stuck up bitch. Oh, god. Everything was layers of heat and shame.

I came and came and came. It was so awful it was glorious.

Afterwards, I gave her a big raise.

Corelle D'Amber walked into her office and placed her purse on the mahogany desktop. The phone rang then, as if it knew when its mistress had returned and it could now deliver up its function and help her conduct business.

She eased it up to her ear, "Corelle here," direct and to the point.

"Alice," she smiled broadly, "how good to hear from you. Did you get the release from Dr. Rand? Everything signed and sealed? Good. No. That's great, sweetheart. Glad to do it."

She listened for a long time. "I'm afraid that's true, Alice. None of this would have been a problem if Bill had stuck by you. I'm glad you realize that. He hasn't been fair. He's put you through a lot of hell."

She nodded.

"Yes. Of course. You name the time and I'll be there." She lowered her voice, "Alice, you're making the right decision. See you soon, sweetheart."

Corelle put the phone down gently. She reached to her cheek and adjusted her eyepatch.

Then she smiled.

First published on the Erotic Mind Control Story Archive.

©EyeofSerpent. Reprinted by permission.

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Michael Manning: Under the Venusberg

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Michael Manning:Under The Venusberg: Tannhäuser, Beardsley and I

2007-12-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

As an artist who does erotic artwork for a living, there are certain questions that I inevitably get asked, whether it's in the context of an online interview, a first-time studio visit or just hanging out at a party. One that I can pretty much count on every time - along with "Have your parents/family seen your books?" (answer: yes) and "Have you tried any of the things you draw in real life?" (answer: yes again) -- is "What inspires you to draw this kind of artwork?"

From In a Metal Web II, ©Michael Manning.

The first things that come to mind are the usual suspects: life, death, sex, the work of other artists. One influence that isn't always so obvious is music. I listen to a lot of it, usually while I'm working. I like seeing live music too. A good live show can provide weeks worth of inspiration. For all the styles and sub-genres of music that I like though, I'm aware that there are many many more that I know very little about. Opera, for example. I own a grand total of one disc (excerpts from Puccini's La Boheme) and am more familiar with the story lines courtesy of P. Craig Russell's comix adaptations and viewings of Amadeus and Immortal Beloved than I am with the actual music. None of my music collector friends are opera fans. Also, I've always had the impression (misguided or not) that opera, like free jazz or death metal, is something best experienced live and the astronomical ticket prices can be very intimidating.

From In A Metal Web I, ©Michael Manning,

Last year, two things tipped the balance toward my first opera experience. One was a generous anniversary gift from Lyn's father that we decided to reserve for something that we couldn't ordinarily afford to do. The other was a locally-produced version of Wagner's Tannhäuser -- a classic operatic meditation on the struggle between the sacred and profane -- which supposedly featured nudity and a big orgy scene. And so one March evening, we found ourselves in the vertigo-inducing cheap seats in the fourth tier of the cavernous Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles. Sure enough, the beginning of Act One did consist of a twenty minute long sex party with many lovely toned mostly-nude bodies engaging in various acts of simulated copulation, writhing away on two rotating stage sets, all bathed in the crimson glow of Venus' underworld. Most of our favorite positions and permutations were featured in a variety of gender combinations with special attention paid to trios, doggy-style fucking, pussy/ass/foot worship and even a bit of flogging. It was all good NC-17 rated fun but the whole time, I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't nearly as naughty as illustrator Aubrey Beardsley's prose version of Venus and Tannhäuser aka Under The Hill from 1904.

From Beardsley's frontispiece to Earl Lavender by John Davidson

Now as an artist who does erotic artwork -- especially predominantly black & white gender-freaky erotic artwork -- it's difficult to remain ignorant of Beardsley, much less avoid having your work measured against his, even in this day and age when black & white artwork makes most people think of manga or Frank Miller. The o.g. (19th century England, baby) black & white gender-freaky erotic artist, Beardsley was never very well known for his prose yet over one hundred years after it's first publication Under The Hill remains one of the dirtiest stories ever told. According to my copy of Aubrey Beardsley: A Slave To Love, the text was never completed during Beardley's life time due to a combination of his ill-health, legal/censorship problems and the scandal resulting from Oscar Wilde's trial, but hotter heads eventually prevailed, the incomplete manuscript finally saw print and has remained in circulation ever since.

In Wagner's version of Tannhäuser, the first act has barely gotten under way before the titular hero, bored to tears with all this endless carnal pleasure and pining for just one more glimpse of Germany's apparently unmatchable fields and streams, chooses to spurn the Goddess and gets himself ejected into the outside world. Predictably, he grows to regret his stupid decision and spends two and a half more acts trying to convince the puritanical aristocrats of his aptly named hometown Wartburg that the noblest form of love is the physical (spoiler: he fails miserably). Thankfully, Beardsley's version chooses to focus on the good stuff; that is, everything that goes down prior to the opera: Tannhäuser's wooing of the Goddess and Meretrix and their erotic adventures, all told in the most ornate gorgeously overblown prose imaginable.

From Chapter I
How The Chevalier Tannhäuser Entered Into The Hill of Venus

It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light footfalls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little.

A delicious moment, thought Tannhäuser, to slip into exile.

The place where he stood waved drowsily with strange flowers, heavy with perfume, dripping with odours. Gloomy and nameless weeds not to be found in Mentzelius. Huge moths, so richly winged they must have banqueted upon tapestries and royal stuffs, slept on the pillars that flanked either side of the gateway, and the eyes of all the moths remained open and were burning and bursting with a mesh of veins. The pillars were fashioned in some pale stone and rose up like hymns in the praise of pleasure, for from cap to base, each one was carved with loving sculptures, showing such a cunning invention and such a curious knowledge, that Tannhäuser lingered not a little in reviewing them. They surpassed all that Japan has ever pictured from her maisons vertes, all that was ever painted in the cool bathrooms of Cardinal La Motte, and even outdid the astonishing illustrations to Jones’s Nursery Numbers.

The full version can be read here.

With its lavishly decked-out gender-ambiguous aristocrats gamboling in scented baths full of serving boys, bands of satyrs "consummating frantically with women's bosoms" and unforgettable highlights such as Venus masturbating her well-hung pet unicorn for the enjoyment of her human lover, Under The Hill achieves an unmatched level of camp eroticism and barely-veiled perversity. I wish I could say that its playfully unapologetic ultra-baroque polysexuality had some influence on the creation of my Spider Garden books but unfortunately, I wasn't aware of it's existence until after I had completed the second Metal Web book.

My first reading of Under The Hill was yet another curve-ball from an artist with whom I'd had an uncertain relationship in the past. Beardsley was one of the few classical artists whose erotic work could be found on library shelves (my post-pubescent pre-internet source for both art and erotica) but like other eventual favorites of mine such as H. R. Giger and Richard Corben, I initially found the air of grotesque decadence in his work to be somewhat sinister and very intimidating.

As a teenager, I had discovered the work of 19th century artists such as Edward Burne-Jones, Alphonse Mucha and Beardsley himself by way of comic book artists like Barry Windsor-Smith, Jeff Jones and the afore-mentioned P. Craig Russell. Among the Romantics and Symbolists, Beardsley was the joker in the deck. Laboring under the shadow of his Pre-Raphaelite contemporaries, his interpretation of L'Morte De Arthur had all the trappings of their chaste and higher-minded romantic fantasies but with dark-side twists that always left me both fascinated and vaguely uneasy. In Beardsley's Arthurian tableau, the sexually-neutral androgyny that characterized Burne-Jones' work was pushed to the level of parody. Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristram and Isolde were transformed into incestuous hermaphrodites, confronting one another in scenes suffused with a deadly languor or a decidedly unchaste almost vampiric urgency. The starkly ornamental scenes, their borders entangled in coils of spiky flowers, seemed strangely claustrophobic; voyeuristic views of chambers draped with barely-parted curtains and shadowy twilight landscapes filled with gleaming mirror/pools, trees that resemble ornamental tapers and candles that look like sex toys.

Two of Beardsley's illustrations for L'Morte De Arthur.

Beardsley's Salome and the Rape of the Lock were equally daunting; lush studies in pale diaphanous textures and shimmering patterns, peopled by leering hunchbacks, gamboling fetuses and beautiful figures of indeterminate gender, their patrician faces transfixing the viewer with a cool gaze, daring them to look away from the opulent decorations and strangely distorted anatomy.

Beardley illustration from Salome

Much of the sexuality in Beardsley's work is more implied than stated (another source of frustration for my teen-self who was usually looking for the harder stuff) but even his infamously explicit Lysistrata illustrations with their corpulent female bodies and gigantic shunga-inspired penises seemed more grotesque to me than erotic. Yet somehow, I couldn't look away. Beneath the freakish sinister atmosphere, there was a sense of playfulness and something genuinely sexy -- something I would need more life experience to truly appreciate.

Two of Beardsley's illustrations for Lysistrata.

A significant event that brought home the true beauty of Beardsley's work and essentially "humanized" him in my eyes was a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Fogg Museum in the mid-80's. It was the first time I had ever seen his illustrations in their original form and I was surprised to find that the black areas which on book pages looked like the essence of pure black night were full of texture and brush strokes. In other places, the drawings had been trimmed, pasted over and whited-out. In essence, they looked like modern comic book pages. For most, this would be a minor detail but for me, Beardsley suddenly didn't seem quite so unapproachable. He wasn't a sinister satyr with "a face like a silver hatchet" living in a castle surrounded by grotesques; he had been a man like me, an artist/craftsman drawing illustrations to pay the rent -- and if the sexuality portrayed in his work still seemed a bit ambiguous -- well, I could relate to that too.

If my work and Beardsley's can be said to have any similarities beyond the purely technical, it would probably be on the theme of the hermetic environment. Beardsley saw Tannhäuser's subterranean Venusberg as a jumping off point for the creation of an inner world of total sexual license -- an elaborate stage on which deliciously decadent fantasies, repressed by the society of his day, could be played out without regard to social order or gender, safe within the womb of the Goddess.

From In a Metal Web II, ©Michael Manning.

Shaalis the Sacred Androgyne is my Venus, "S/He who delights in that part common to both Hir men and Hir women," the Goddess incarnate with both cock and cunt who accepts the intimate worship of Hir slaves (beautiful men and women made equal by gender transformation) while dispensing Hir sacrament through blood ritual and sodomy. I took narcissism and the mirror, two other recurrent themes in Beardsley's work, to an incestuous extreme with Shaalis' former lover, Squamata Serpentine. She and her sister Lichurna are the ultimate fantasy/cautionary tale of falling in love with your own image.

From In a Metal Web II, ©Michael Manning

Theirs is a truly hermetic existence, a divided soul locked in a self-devouring embrace while their sex-starved Tengu slave Gion is reduced to sucking himself off for their pleasure. I wasn't fully conscious of it at the time I first started drawing them (there are versions of Shaalis and Squamata that date back to my high school days) but now when I look at the Sister's snaky locks and contortions and Shaalis' regal perversity, I can't help but see echoes of Beardsley's Athenian bacchantes from Lysistrata and L'Morte De Arthur's witchy androgynes.

From Hydrophidian, ©Michael Manning.

I realize that the way I'm describing my own work here may sound as off-putting to some as Beardsley's work initially was to me. One person's utopia, especially one founded on exploring the limits of carnal desire, can easily seem like another's person's dystopia, misinterpretation being one of the many risks we run when we choose to share our dreams with others. Just as the Garden itself is a mirror for the inner workings of the mind of its multi-gendered ruler, I suppose the series as a whole could be thought of as a reflection of my own imperfect yearning for a polysexual utopia that real-life sex parties and BD/SM play can tantalizingly approximate but never quite fully achieve. Whether the Spider Garden and the Venusberg can be an ideal to anyone other than myself, Aubrey Beardsley and the characters that live there is ultimately another matter of personal choice. For some, they may just be rest-stops on the way to worlds that none of us has even imagined yet.

Print of Shaalis and Squamata, ©Michael Manning.

Onward
Alexander Stewart: The Animated Gay Utopia

Backward
EyeofSerpent: Friendly Advice

Related Pleasures
Suzanne Bachner: Fireworks
Tabico: Adaptation
Lille Carré: Art

Michael Manning's Webpage

Alexander Stewart: The Animated Gay Utopia

2007-12-20T03:33:00.000-08:00

At its most abstract, a gay utopia is a hypothetical post-gender condition in which personality, imagination and libido are the central terms by which a person is defined. Further, a gay utopia is also based on the idea that bodies should conform to the desires of the mind. Using these guidelines, the landscapes and characters of American animated films of the 1920’s are a fulfillment of the ideas of a gay utopia. In fact, it is the spirit of the gay utopia that in a way defines the true potential of animated cartoons: to create worlds whose boundaries and characters are limited only by imagination, a world in which nothing is permanent and everything is potentially something else.

Animation is a descendant of technology and magic. The early cinema genre of the “trick film” hinged on the fact that most audiences had a very limited understanding of how a movie camera and projector actually worked. The mechanical and perceptual principles that generated the illusion of motion onscreen in a movie theater were enough of a mystery to the average viewer in 1907; to take advantage of these principles in order to create trick films was to confound all but the most knowledgeable theater-goer. In films like Georges Méliès’s 1902 Le Voyage dans La Lune, stopping the camera, replacing an actor with something else, and starting the camera again produced bafflingly fantastic transformative results. As a sensational theatrical spectacle, the closest precedent for the viewers of trick films was performative stage magic, and so the filmmakers were behind-the-scenes magicians. The technology of the camera facilitated even more thrilling magic when objects in the film were made to move of their own volition by combining hundreds of those stop-camera frames in sequence, in what can reasonably be called early instances of true animation.

The idea that animation is a magical effect carried over to the early subject matter of drawn cartoons, which tended toward surreal, anti-real, supernatural and fantastical topics. Emile Cohl’s 1908 film Fantasmagorie is generally identified as the first modern animated cartoon, and as the title suggests, is an illogical dream-state metamorphosis. Everything is drawn, and therefore, everything is susceptible to the imagination of the animator. The film is a tour-de-force of surreal stream-of-consciousness metamorphosis, in which everything is on the verge of transformation into something else: a champagne bottle becomes a flower; an elephant becomes a house. Further playing on the idea that animation is magical, a common device in drawn films from this period was to feature the animator as the star actor, sitting at his drawing table, and accomplishing the neat trick of having his drawing come to life on the page. This “hand of the animator” gag can be seen at the start and end of Cohl’s film. The animator is the magician, the animation is the stage-show, and as such the film is about the animator and how well he can conjure amazing tricks. The animator is the central personality of these films.

Fantasmagorie by Emile Chol, 1908.

The shift in focus from the animator-as-magician-as-star to the animated-character-as-star is gradual over the period of 1908-1915, but that trajectory is clearly visible in Winsor McCay’s famous Gertie the Dinosaur. The film features McCay as the principle human actor, winning a wager by creating the requisite drawings for an animated version of a dinosaur. In this way, it is firmly placed within the tradition of performative trick films. The element of the film that is truly remarkable, however, is Gertie herself. Gertie is usually described as the first animated star, which is significant in that she has a personality that manages to extend beyond the ink on the page and the motion-picture screen. Rather than a mere collection of haphazard pranks and figurative gags that were the norm for animated films of the period (compare even with McCay’s own earlier work, the Little Nemo cartoon from 1911), McCay managed to give Gertie a strong personality that projected beyond the framework of the miniscule filmic narrative of McCay’s movie.

Gertie the Dinosaur, Winsor McCay, 1914

By 1920, the magical trick-film inheritance of animation was becoming overshadowed by the appeal of charming on-screen personalities. The major star of the period, Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat, is an example of many of the key qualities that make animated characters work, and in turn, is an example of many of the ideas that allow character animation of the 20’s to fulfill the idea of a gay utopia. While trick-films may have been passing from vogue in the late 1910’s, the surreal and fantastic ideas they exploited were still a major component of the concept of the animated cartoon. Felix’s world may have more recognizable detail than the simply drawn world of Cohl’s Fantasmagorie, but for animators at the Sullivan studio, the drawn landscape still held a great deal of magical potential. In the early Felix cartoons, lampposts grow legs and walk, hot dogs have a mind of their own, and buildings exhibit the same stretch-and-squash principles as the characters.

Which is, of course, the same logic under which the body of Felix himself operates. Felix is famous for the array of surreal functions his body can accomplish: removing and reattaching limbs, using his tail as a sword or clarinet, transforming himself into a suitcase or clock, and in Felix Trifles With Time, having his skin (and muscles, apparently) removed and reattached. Another common Felix trick is to reach for his own exclamation points and question marks as tools to remedy a particular situation. His body is fluid, and changes to meet his needs and desires.

Felix Trifles With Time, Otto Messmer, 1925

The primary difference between this metamorphic plasticity in Felix and in earlier work like Fantasmagorie is the awareness of Felix as a consistent personality. Felix may change shape or adjust elements of his figure, but he never ceases being Felix. Granted, the degree of transformation of Felix’s body is nowhere near as fluid and constant as the clown’s body in Cohl’s film, but the potential is there, and it is constantly realized in Felix’s adventures. It is a sort of juxtaposition of conceptual inversions; as if Cohl’s film is a surreal abstraction that congeals into moments of narrative stability, and Messmer’s character is a solidified character who lapses into moments of fantastic transformation. But the successful balance between consistency and mutability that exists in Felix is key to a gay utopia. A citizen of the gay utopia is a personality that directs the form and function of the body. The personality exists distinct from the body for Felix as it does for any other gay utopian.

Which is not to say that the body is irrelevant, secondary or even ornamental. The key to Felix’s character is the paradox that his body both defines him (in an iconic and graphic fashion) and conforms to his imagination. His body informs his character, but does not limit it. It enhances his character by remaining malleable to the whims of his imagination.

The surreal permissibility of Felix typifies the logic of American studio animations of the 1920’s. Felix was the first animated superstar and was hugely influential on dozens of other characters. One of these, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, created by Walt Disney and animated primarily by Ub Iwerks, provides for an interesting comparison with Felix. Often seen as the immediate forerunner to Mickey, Oswald was a major improvement for Disney and Iwerks over their other 1920’s animated fare. While only animated by Iwerks for one year, 1927-28, before the rights to the character were forfeited, Oswald is a sort of late-model Felix, improving upon the original, but still existing in Felix’s world. Messmer is clearly the humble master of early silent studio animation, but Iwerks is a major stylistic force who contributed to the rise of the deeply influential Disney style of the late 1930’s. 1927, though, is a unique moment in animation history, when the Felix model of surreal silent cartoons was reaching a moment of near decadence: everything moves, everything is expressive, everything has potential. Iwerks’s take on this style is a milestone. Iwerks’s Oswald cartoons exhibit an elasticity and three-dimensionality that are a cut above Messmer’s graphic work. In the Iwerks cartoon Great Guns, Oswald as a physical creature follows a logic much the same as Felix’s: he detaches and re-attaches his own lucky rabbit-foot, he catches and throws cannonballs with his ears, he is shot to pieces and reformed as liquid in a martini shaker:

Oswald the Rabbit in Great Guns, Ub Iwerks, 1927

But if the 1927 Oswald cartoons are a masterpiece of Felix-style animation, they are also the final chapter of this wonderfully fantastical period. Disney and Iwerks discarded the purity of Felix’s unlimited surreal logic in favor of a more entertaining visual slapstick. Walt Disney is often reviled in academic animation circles for his insistence on a basis of “realism” in his cartoons. As an example, during the early 1930’s, Disney’s backgrounds moved away from the cartoony style of Felix and toward a style of idealized naturalism. In doing so, Disney’s animated landscapes lost their fundamental potential. In the exquisitely rendered world of Disney’s 1937 masterpiece Snow White, for example, the graphic possibilities of Oswald’s fluid landscape has been converted into a calcified storybook painting. The Seven Dwarves may move with an elasticity similar to Oswald’s, but they have very different rules directing their behavior. They have lost their ability to interact with their world as if it were made of the same material as their own bodies; their world has become “real” while they remain caricatures. They have fallen from the state of grace of existing in a world of pure imagination, and instead exist separated from their houses and trees and landscape.

During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, Disney’s realist style, aided in no small part by his mastery of the technology of synchronized sound in his cartoons, eclipsed the Felix style that had defined animation during the early 20’s. The surreal impulse that drove Felix reached a high-water mark in the rubber-hose style of the Fleischer studio in the late 1930’s with the fantastic Popeye series. Eventually, however, Fleischer too was unable to stand up to the influence of Disney’s popular style. The Fleischer studio was driven to an economic collapse as they attempted to shift their production style away from the rubber-hose surrealism and toward a marketable Disney style realism. To a lesser degree, the playful surreal imagination of the 20’s lived on in the shorts of the 1940’s created by Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones at Warner Brothers. It resurfaced with a vengeance in 1990’s in the work of John Kricfalusi, with the Mighty Mouse and Ren and Stimpy shows. But for a brief period during the 1920’s, animation existed in a state in which the fantastic was truly possible, and was frequently depicted. The logical boundaries for the actions and bodies of Felix and Oswald are only the imaginations of Messmer and Iwerks.

Popeye in The Painless Window Washer, Fleischer studios, 1937

So what sort of gay utopia can be seen in the animation of the 20’s? Based on this examination of trickfilms, early cartoons, Felix and Oswald, it is a utopia in which the underlying logic of the universe is based on the fantastic and the supernatural. The bodies of characters in this utopian landscape are fluid and exhibit what animation historian Donald Crafton in his excellent book Before Mickey calls a “polymorphous plasticism,” open to adjustment and reconfiguration as the scenario requires. Most importantly, in our animated utopia, personalities are constant while bodies may change. Perhaps, though, this simplified gay utopia lacks one of the most crucial elements of a gay utopia: the promise of a society motivated and held together by unlimited polyamorous pleasures. There is plenty of sexual metaphor in the landscape of cartoons of the 20’s, such as the hilariously manipulated phallic dinosaur bone in Felix Trifles with Time, and the consistent appearance of protruding rear-ends in Disney’s character animation. However these naïve examples are perhaps exceptions that prove the rule: there is very little literal sexual content in animation of the 1920’s.

Fleischer’s Betty Boop, who made her debut in 1930, is recognized as the most explicit presence of sexuality in animation of the period. In addition to her famously revealing flapper dress and garter, Betty is often placed in situations where her clothing is compromised for one reason or another. However, the mature Betty Boop (she was drawn with dog ears until 1932) has a solid physicality. She does not metamorphose or adjust herself. Perhaps that physical surrealism would have deflated her sexuality in the minds of her viewers. Betty Boop is literal in her sexuality, but she’s also much more limited in physical potential than Felix or Oswald.

Betty Boop, M.D., Fleischer Studios, 1932

The one well-known instance of explicit sexual material in animation of the 20’s is a film that goes by several names; often, Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure. The apocryphal backstory on this animation is that it was produced collaboratively after-hours at several major animation studios in the mid-20’s, and was shown at a party given in honor of Winsor McCay in 1928. The animation follows the exploits of the well-endowed and aroused Eveready as he seeks to satisfy his lust. This involves frustrated attempts at fornication with a variety of creatures and orifices. During the course of the animation, several interesting variations on the surreal logic of Felix’s universe develop. These variations primarily exist in the relationship of Eveready and his prominent member. Gags like using his penis as a sword, having his penis stretch to fantastic lengths, and hammering his bent penis into shape with a rock seem like simple perverse variations on well-worn tricks from the vocabulary of Felix’s tail. Which would make sense, if in fact the film was created by animators at major studios as is claimed. In the first minute of the cartoon, though, the logic of the sexual hilarity allows for a cartoon joke beyond any possible with traditional characters. Eveready sees two flies on the tip of his penis, and tries to shoot them off with a revolver. His penis, naturally, is shocked by the violence of the act, detaches itself from Eveready’s body, and hides behind a rock. It is shortly reattached, but endowing the auxiliary body part with its own sentience is a trick not seen in most studio animation; Felix can detach his tail, but it never has a mind of its own.

Eveready Harton, 1928.

Interestingly for the animated gay utopia, the one sexual taboo in Buried Treasure is homosexual. Eveready makes absurdly enthusiastic attempts at heterosexual and beastial unions, but his one moment of repulsion comes when he discovers he has made accidental homosexual contact. It is an indication of a sort of ideological threshold that exists in the animation of the period. Even though Eveready has surreal sexual abilities, these still follow a fairly conventional trajectory. The realization of unlimited fulfillment of the sexualized body, and with it, realization of the gay utopia, is within reach in Buried Treasure, but it is deliberately avoided. Similarly, the juxtaposition of Betty Boop’s solidified sexual body with the fluid plasticism in the goofy, non-sexualized bodies of Betty’s on-screen friends Bimbo, Popeye and a rotoscoped Cab Calloway illuminates this same ideological barrier. The sexualized body and the fluid body, which in combination represent the complete realization of the idea of the gay utopia, are in practice at odds in the animation of the 20’s and 30’s. Sex cannot be plasticized here.

An interesting take on this ideological roadblock can be seen in the sexual mores driving Disney’s fairy tale features, particularly the someday-my-prince-will-come variety like Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid. The sexuality is not overt, it is codified in a Hayes Code derived Disney-ese. The fulfillment for the heroines in these animations is a kiss and a marriage. However, the desire for this chaste consummation is ultimately a tension that drives much of these movies, and in that way Disney’s princess love stories do operate with a level of erotic motivation. The flip side of allowing this amorous narrative element is an extreme rejection of cartoon-bodies in the sexualized characters. The character of Snow White is famously the product of many, many hours of anatomical and motion studies by the Disney team, and Prince Charming is for all intents and purposes a rotoscoped figure with an un-charming stiffness. This physical realism in the romantic characters is dramatically contrasted with the floppy squishyness of the Seven Dwarves, whose own amorous desires for Snow White are seen as comical and absurd. Even in the most polished Disney feature work, often seen as the antithesis of the rubber-hose style of the 20’s, the same tension between fluidity of the body and acknowledgement of sexuality can be discerned. If we, the audience, are to identify with a character’s sexuality in any meaningful way, then the body must be stable. Romantic expressions from plasticized characters, like Popeye and Olive Oyl, seem childlike and humorous.

The gay utopia in animation is the true expression of the medium: bodies and landscapes adjusting and interacting on a whim, and with a fantastic physicality. The gay utopia stands against realism in animation on all levels, and delights in spontaneity, imagination and expressions of the character through the animated body.

The end of the fantastical Felix era is marked by the rise of the Disney era, and with it, a fixation on concepts of realism in hand-drawn film. The gay utopia of the 1920’s was overcome by the essentially conservative animated worldview of Disney’s realism. The struggle of creative minds with the tendency toward animated realism is being rehashed in new terms in the contemporary realm of computer-generated films. Sophisticated digital modeling and animation tools have given new seductive promise to the idea of animating things “realistically,” and the animation-viewing public has been treated to some horrific stinkers in recent memory. Perhaps the most conspicuous of these are films that use motion-capture technology to force digital models to move like “real” actors: Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, The Polar Express, and the freshly odious Beowulf. These films are enamored of simulating reality in a way that squashes any real fantastic imagination. They walk the same path, but with an admittedly more interesting future, that Disney did in the 1930’s, away from animated surreal potential (think of the relationship between the body and the landscape in 1982’s TRON, for example) and toward codified, constricted reality.

An interesting note to observe on Beowulf is that the personification of Undefeatable Threat to Mankind is a naked, golden Angelina Jolie. Besides the surface-level issues of misogyny in the film, the fact that Angelina is both gratuitously sexualized (seemingly by a high school sophomore) and has an unstable body recalls the early-animation rule of sexuality being reserved for stable bodies. Without placing too much significance on a crude Freudian analysis, it’s not too great a leap to imagine that Angelina’s tail-like braid, her feet with built-in high heels, her ability to walk on water, and her psionic shape-shifiting allow for the audience to internalize her threat on a psychological level by trying to reconcile our objectification of her as an item of sexual desirability with our fear of her ultimate control over bodily form. It’s a strange fulfillment of the anxiety that keeps Betty Boop from having a transmutable body.

In order to examine contemporary work that either embraces some aspect of the gay utopia or completely discards it, a quick comparison of Beowulf with Pixar’s The Incredibles is in order. Not exactly worlds apart in commercial or creative intentions, but it’s an illuminating comparison nonetheless. The instinct driving the style, character and movement of The Incredibles is exaggeration and caricature, and in fact it produces admirably compelling results. The instinct driving the style of Beowulf is the intention to remove all evidence of the hands and efforts of the animators. Beowulf is a polished, closed visual world, with little room for spontaneity or actual imagination; it is the antithesis of the gay utopia. The Incredibles, while not nearly in league with Felix or Oswald, is at least an adventure in the stylized invention of bodies and landscape, where the physical imitations of the bodies, objects and architecture has some degree of imaginative potential. Beowulf, The Polar Express and their dispassionate brethren offer a look into a horrifying chasm of soulless filmmaking that is at best devoid of any spontaneous creativity, and at worst absolutely no fun.

The gay utopia of 1920’s animation may never disappear completely, but it is certainly not in any condition of robust health in the world of contemporary mainstream animation. However, the fluid potential of the gay utopia is alive and well in a variety of smaller-format animation arenas, including Xavier: Renegade Angel on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim), the web animation Homestar Runner, Bill Plympton’s short Your Face, John Kricfalusi’s series Ren and Stimpy, and a wide range of engaging and challenging animations from the underground/experimental film world, like Amy Lockhart’s wonderful Walk for Walk.

Walk for Walk, Amy Lockhart

Xavier: Renegade Angel

A comparison between two examples of Bill Plympton’s work with a short clip from Robert Zemekis’s The Polar Express is perhaps the most self-explanatory manner in which to illuminate the remnants of the gay utopia as it can be detected in contemporary animation.

Clip of Santa leaving ~~the Nuremberg rally~~ the North Pole in The Polar Express.

The Kiss, Bill Plympton

Nik Nak commercial, Bill Plympton

©Alexander Stewart. Used by permission.

Onward
Dame Darcy: Gasoline

Backward
Michael Manning: Under the Venusberg

Related Pleasures
Dewayne Slightweight: Art
William J. O'Brien: Art
Ma Rainey: Prove It On Me Blues

Alexander Stewart's Website

Dame Darcy: Gasoline

2007-12-20T03:30:00.000-08:00

Author’s Note: This is an excerpt from a screenplay. Gasoline is a rock n roll apocalyptic fairytale about a family of witches. Casper was adopted into the Armbuster family whose youngest brother is Richard. They have a love affair, as does Casper with the oldest sister.

INT. SECRET LAB ROOM - DAY
Amidst the car parts, welding devices, and other interesting but unrecognizable machinery, is Casper's photo.

RICHARD: (to photo) The others won't understand until it is completed. They're cool, but too old. They'll like it when it's complete though. Then we will spring it on them.

CUT TO
INT. lab part of the windmill - DAY
Richard shows Casper a few alchemy tricks. Fusion.

(The following scene will be animated and live action)

Casper moves steam in an arc.

CASPER: Now I aspire to be the ultimate artist, and master the art of fusion.

An image of a centaur shoots an arrow in an arc, it pierces fourteen red planets and strings them like beads. The centaur's eyes glow with the firelight from the red planets.

Close up Casper's eyes. They glow the same.

Casper pulls the lace cuffs down from his green velvet jacket and adjusts them just so.

CASPER: I made this clothing myself and I wear it to show I am ready for whatever new life followed death. I do not fear death. My first alchemical experiment/lesson involves steam.

He looked at his hands, worn and weathered, hands that knew dirt.

CUT TO
His hands are the center of an axel to a wheel. The wheel at the center of a machine.

CUT TO
Richard making the machine and Casper being the assistant. They carefully assemble and readjust it to mix together water and fire. The metal burns red hot and the tears drip from Casper's beautiful blue eyes, and Richard's emerald green, making the smoldering gears sizzle.

(CONTINUED)
At the top blooms a large metal funnel where they mix all kinds of animals and colorful liquids. Lions, scorpions glowing with blue fire, birds, and at last, red water (which should not be mistaken for blood).

CASPER: This creates the integration of innate duality's and polarities through the alchemical process.

Next they draw a crescent moon, pierced by sun rays, the union of night and day, feminine and masculine. They burn the drawing and go to bury the ashes.

CUT TO

EXT.
Casper and Richard outside.

They uncover a stone with this inscription carved into it:

CLOSE UP stone:
Visit the interior of the earth (yourself) and you shall find the hidden stone.

CASPER: My subconscious will be revealed in the dream world.

They dig further and find the skull of a man, this has the inscription: Dream world.

They place the skull in the tall grass near the hole and a sparrow lands on it. It begins singing visibly, little arrows shoot from its beak in patterns.

CASPER: The sparrow shoots arrows like the Prairie dog the Indians are always talking about, but these are not disease arrows, they are arrows of communication.

CUT TO
The sparrow, Perched prettily on the skull, the bird sings its song; a rainbow arches its way over the bird in a colorful, glittering, mist.

Richard and Casper look at each other.

(CONTINUED)

RICHARD: I realize I can understand the bird as it sings a harmony with its self.

CASPER: Yes, it says "Rectification, Purification," in a round.

RICHARD: All right!

Gasoline is a graphic novel and feature film. The book is due out in Oct of 2008 and is published by Merrell books. ©Dame Darcy. Used by permission.

Onward
Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith

Backward
Alexander Stewart: The Animated Gay Utopia

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Dame Darcy's Website

Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith

2007-12-20T03:25:00.000-08:00

                                   “…and this word
      bumping around in the landscape…”
                                            ----Judith Barrington

But it’s a soft word, Judith!
If you said a word for its softness,
you might say billowy,
or valley floor, or lesbian.
If you made up an unbumpy sound,
you might come out with ahloovay,
or elyamoor, or lesbian.
The ell, the zz, the buh, the nn –-
how could you make a kinder noise?
Or say The Isle of Lesbos:
soft hills above a purple sea,
a wind sound, a shell murmur,
even to one who inhabits
one of the right-angled landscapes.
Exile is also a soft word.

"For Judith," copyright (c) 1993 by Ursula K. LeGuin; first appeared in UrbanUS; from GOING OUT WITH PEACOCKS And Other Poems; used by permission of the author and the author's agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

Onward
Nishizaka Hiromi: Okami

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Dame Darcy: Gasoline

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Ursula K. Le Guin's Webpage

Nishizaka Hiromi: Okami

2007-12-20T03:15:00.000-08:00

read left to right
click to enlarge

Translation by Matt Thorn.
©Nishizaka Hiromi. Used by permission.

Onward
Bert Stabler: The Post-Gender Mystique

Backward
Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith

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Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness
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Bert Stabler: The Post-Gender Mystique

2007-12-20T03:10:00.000-08:00

Femininity is not frequently accorded respect. In gay culture, “femme” is still rarely an option associated with strength, meaning, knowledge, and freedom. At best, girliness may have a temporary strategic appeal, but it can’t be dissociated from values of impotence, consumption, and passivity, articulating itself only through cruel gossip and tacky melodrama. This may explain partly why the hyperfeminized scenes and characters of Japanese comics (manga) for adolescent girls (shojo) has had so little appeal to American fans of superhero comics, fine art, literary fiction, or their collective unholy offspring, alternative comics. And yet I insist that the art now on display in the group survey show Shojo Manga! Girl Power! at Columbia College’s modest C33 Gallery, is more worthwhile, on the whole, than the work on display in Los Angeles in the all-star Masters of American Comics show, soon to be coming to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The reason I find a collection of work by Japanese masters like Osamu Tezuka, Ryoko Ikeda, Moto Hagio, Masako Watanbe, and the female art and writing collective CLAMP so important is not only because the shojo manga form will continue to gain in influence in the U.S., but because it shows possibilities for comics that have been largely untested by Western creators.

Despite the show’s celebratory title, I would hardly make a claim that, if any form of pulpy pop culture is going to set young women free, shojo manga will be that emancipatory force. On the other hand, shojo manga exemplifies many of the seeming contradictions I often find moving in Japanese visual art. The page layout is utterly unlike the traditional ice-cube tray format of American comics, merging the elegant, startling shapes and juxtapositions of Russian Constructivism with the Eurotrash hair-model illustrations of Patrick Nagel and the enormous sparkling eyes of scruffy soulful orphans in thrift-store paintings. This sense of giddy, helium-sucking boundlessness applies generally to the storytelling in shojo manga as well. Distinctions blur between inner and outer states, waking and dreaming, past and future, male and female, gay and straight. Identities and realities swim in a candy-coated vision of romantic glory that, despite the petty objections of sundry aesthetes, hardly qualifies as disposable or superficial, particularly in comparison with the cartoony but macho post-Pop skater and graffiti art that has received undue respect in the art world for far too long.

From Amaterasu,
©Suzue Miuchi

Writers in the two sources I consulted, the Shojo Manga! Girl Power! catalog and the July 2005 edition of The Comics Journal, which was devoted exclusively to shojo manga, obsessively reiterate the immense popularity of the medium, both in the U.S. and east Asia. In Japan, comics conventions peopled almost entirely by women (as yet unheard of here), most of whom are allowed and encouraged to self-publish and sell their fan fiction (ditto), can pack in upwards of 500,000 attendees. In the U.S., the market for manga has recently topped $100 million yearly, the majority of those sales going to shojo manga titles, presumably being bought mostly by teen and pre-teen girls. As I’ve intimated, though, the content of shojo manga is what makes it extraordinary. Themes of abuse, suicide, sex, and changing family structures are dealt with in operatic and soap-operatic style. But perhaps the most provocative aspect is the resounding success of comics for girls that deal with homosexuality and highly unstable gender roles. Beginning with the unchallenged master of the media of manga and anime (animation), Osamu Tezuka, the 1953-56 story Ribbon no Kishi (The Knight of the Ribbon, or Princess Knight), featured the princess Sapphire, who carries within her the heart of a man and the heart of a woman. She is prevented from ascending the throne as a woman, and is raised as a boy, but then falls in love with a prince from a neighboring kingdom, and so re-feminizes herself with a flowing, flaxen-haired wig. Another major series, Ryoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles (1972-73), focuses on Oscar, the daughter of a noble family who is raised as a boy and serves as a military commander under Marie Antoinette, falling in love with Andre, the son of her wet nurse. But cross-dressing suggestiveness, while its popularity endures, has since expanded into explicit homosexuality (primarily male), along with magical and futuristic gender-role chaos, as central features of top-selling comics for girls and women. While not featured in the exhibit, the SM! GP! catalog, as well as the Comics Journal special edition, discuss the established genre of explicit male homosexuality (aimed at female readers) known as yaoi, a term derived from the first syllables for the terms “no climax,” “no point,” and “no meaning” -- though the acronym also serves for the phrase “Stop, my butt hurts!”

The show of 23 landmark shojo manga artists at C33 isn’t always easy to look at. The pieces are crowded together under plexiglass and mat board, and are confusingly organized with respect to titles and explanatory labels. Numerous pieces are hung facing the windows as a lure to passersby, which means you have to climb into the windows, putting yourself on display, in order to get a good look at some images. Artwork of such fine detail and vivid color suffers from the cramped conditions (though it’s nonetheless impressive that someone figured out how to get all the art to fit). This show in this space feels something like a high-end airbrush studio specializing in sadomasochistic sci-fi wedding portraits. However, the art is often beautiful, the historical sweep is edifying, and it’s hard not to enjoy many of the plot synopses, such as that for CLAMP’s 2003 Cardcaptor Sakura series “Tsubasa (Wings),” which includes the line: “One day, when Sakura touches some old ruins, she falls down, and her memory flies beyond time and space. To help Sakura, Yiao Lion visits a witch and begins the journey to find Sakura’s memory.” The show is additionally enhanced by a stack of free Shojo Beat magazines. This provides an important element by allowing viewers a chance to see mainstream shojo manga in its natural habitat, black-and-white panel narratives on newsprint, as opposed to the painted pin-up images that rarely appear in print, but dominate the exhibit. Seeing these soft watercolor washes, the collaged textures, and the immaculate lines up close is a viscerally dazzling experience that, in its aggressive perfection and macabre, sexually charged energy, succeeds in belying, if subtly, Western preconceptions of the feminine. At the same time, its idealized internality and open-ended imagining evokes what psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan termed “jouissance,” a state of bliss outside of language, accessible to only the female mind.

Onward
Dewayne Slightweight: The Kinship Structure of Ferns

Backward
Nishizaka Hiromi: Okami

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Bert Stabler's Website

Dewayne Slightweight: The Kinship Structure of Ferns

2007-12-20T03:04:00.000-08:00

click on images

Onward
Edie Fake: Call the Corners

Backward
Bert Stabler: The Post-Gender Mystique

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Edie Fake: Call The Corners

2007-12-20T03:02:00.000-08:00

Onward
Lelah Fern: Your Golden Sun Will Shine For Me

Backward
Dewayne Slightweight: The Kinship Structure of Ferns

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Lelah Fern:Your Golden Sun Will Shine For Me

2007-12-20T03:00:00.001-08:00

I am writing a time travel novel. It’s also a romance novel. So far it doesn’t have any gay people in it. Now, I know time travel is as hackneyed an idea as, say, a gay utopia. So is romance. I mean, Please. Get over it. But . . . I don’t want to.

Why not? Umm . . . well, there was this time. A gay friend of mine came up to my apartment. We’d been friends for a long time but he had never seen my place. As we were climbing the stairs he kept making jokes about how he was about to go into a lesbian’s apartment and how there would probably be plaid couches and cat art everywhere. How shocked he was to discover my fabulous retro/minimalist style! Nary a pussy in sight, either representational or real. He goggled. He gaped. He turned to me and said, as if it were the greatest compliment in the whole world, “You are an honorary gay man!”

This festered. Not because he was a lesbophobic homo -- I have long ago stopped being shocked by the fact that a large number of my brothers have problems with womyn-lovin’-womyn. Nope, it festered because I was like, where the fuck IS my cat art and my plaid couch? When did I give that up for the empty, empty praise of a lesbophobe who bought all his tasteful crap in a single afternoon from Restoration Hardware (true)? Good God, I said to myself. What have I sacrificed? Where is my dog-eared poster of Audre Lorde, stuck up on my wall with blue tac bleeding through the corners? What happened to the struggle? When did the struggle become my mid-century modern furniture?

Which is not to totally freak out and say that I want to go back to the days when Sisterhood was Powerful. Sisterhood isn’t powerful. Or rather, it really really is, it’s super powerful, and it ALWAYS ends in tears. And recriminations. So I’m scared of it and eschew it because I am a coward. But still. Sisterhood is better than Restoration Hardware. Isn’t it?

Which got me to thinking about restoration and hardware and my not-so-secret love of the Regency Romance.

But hold on. I have more to say about my furniture. My beautiful bourgie modernist furniture is all “sourced” as they say, painstakingly, from here and there, across many years. It is, I would argue, with my eyebrow raised and my cigarette holder cocked at an arrogant angle, REAL. My modernism is REALLY modernism and yours is just a load of expensive hooey. So there. Having thus impressed upon you your own pathetic enslavement to the simulacrum of grooviness, I would hustle you out the door and scurry into my bedroom, dive under the covers and begin reading a romance novel. You, your furniture, my furniture -- all would be immediately forgotten.

For the uninitiated, the genre of romance novel that floats my little wee boat is that genre in which rich Englishmen court rich Englishwomen between the years of 1811 and 1820. The genre is now in serious decline because, to be really good, a regency romance requires that these individuals NOT have sex within the pages of the novel. They are uptight, frigid, unpleasant English people and their love blooms in an extremely chilly environment in which to get naked would mean certain social death. These days, romance novels are chock full o’ sex, throbbing manhoods, heaving bosoms, eager squishy comings together. Ick. And this ickiness is bad news for our friends from the English Regency. They are shuffling, in their uncomfortable clothing, from the stage. So I am an aficionado of regencies written between 1929 and around 1988. I buy them on Ebay from others who share my kink.

But I digress. What does Restoration Hardware have to do with regency romances have to do with queerness? The link is tenuous, but I am about to try to make it. You will see, when I make the link, that I am saying that in spite of the greater beauty of my stuff, I am as big a sucker for bullshit nostalgia as my Restoration-Hardware-shopping pal, the lesbophobe. And that my suckerdom constitutes a large part of my queerness. And that this is probably politically fucked, but it is what it is. Interested? If so, attend:

The great thing about those regency romances is their total dedication to the feeling of nostalgia -- the poignant yearning for restoration of some long lost (fakey fake fake) past. And the other great thing about these regency romances is their fascination with the stuff -- the clothes, the horses, the carriages, the paraphernalia, the hardware -- of a bygone era. The best regency romance writers -- ladies with unbelievable names like Georgette and Annalise -- fill pages with arcane knowledge about the gew gaws of yore. It makes you feel so lovely and warm and melancholy inside, reading, of an afternoon, about the sparkly crap that filled the lives of men and women rich beyond the dreams of man . . . and then to look up at the hustle bustle of everyday life and think, “oh . . . I was born in the wrong era!” You feel this way while lying on your “real” furniture. You indulge yourself in characterless fantasies of a neverland past full of rich people and beautiful objects, and it feels so good!

Now I know that this feeling, in the realm of reality or of historical accuracy or of politics, is a load of crap. Everything about way back then sucked in comparison to now, and those people were the worst of the lot. Slave owning shitheads living off the blood of the working poor. I know. And these books have nary a gay person in them. I’ve read about a billion and a half of these confections, and only three have gay characters. Tragically gay, my dear, tragically gay. And their tragic gayness ruins the lives of those around them, getting in the way of straight people and their love stories. Tragic gay people croak, of course, and it’s better for them and everyone else when they do. I know I know I know. I know. I KNOW!

But still. How I love them. Bring them on. Put me on a desert island with the same billion and a half novels that I’ve already read, and I’ll be happy. I could argue that this is my version of Camp, and we all know -- or should admit unless we are queenophobes as well as lesbophobes -- that Camp is powerful and world changing and a beautiful, beautiful thing. However. I am not making that claim. I think my nostalgia -- my pedantic, prissy nostalgia -- is different and actually far less pleasant than Camp.

My point is -- and I think we must all fess up to this, boys and girls -- empty nostalgia feels gay. Utopia feels gay. Dreams of other times and places -- times and places that may in fact be inhabited entirely by piggish straight people -- feel gay. I feel gay as a jailbird just thinking about the past, and thinking about it non-critically. Wallowing in it. Mmm mmmm mmmmmm!

Think about what Tony Bennett has to say about San Francisco:

The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay,
The glory that was Rome is of another day,
I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan,
I'm going home to my city by the bay.

He’s saying, back in 1962 . . . but wait. I’ve just Wikipedia’d the song, and it was written in 1954 by a couple of guys, who wrote it for some girl. But we all know it as Tony’s song, so that’s how I’m going to talk about it. What Tony’s saying is, that cities have their day. There is a perfect era, he theorizes, for every city. Paris’ day is over, he says, because it “seems somehow sadly gay.” Now, what is he saying about Paris? Just exactly what it sounds like he’s saying. It was a great moment for the word “gay,” when it meant both happy and homo simultaneously. Tony is able to access the simple fact that a big part of gayness is Schadenfreude. It is the wonderful feeling of feeling bad, and it attaches most deliciously to the past, to nostalgia. Ironic that he wants to escape that feeling by moving to San Francisco, which would soon become the gay capital of the world. Or maybe he knows that. Maybe the song is about the past and future perfection of gayness -- the lostness and the immanence -- never the presence. A nostalgia for a gay future in San Francisco as well as a gay past in Paris. And Rome. The glory that was Rome? It was one big muscle-bound circuit party but alas, that party boat left the dock long ago. And Manhattan, where it’s so fucking hard to get laid? In Manhattan, Tony is forgotten -- Manhattan has left him behind, alone in a past it has forsaken. But San Francisco! It’s his home -- a place he left, a place he left his heart -- but also a place he can return to in an imminent future. But now, heartless, he is caught in the yearning, suspended between past and future. San Francisco! Where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars!

I’m choking myself up here, sandwiching San Francisco’s great gay moment between Tony’s yearning for a future that can reconstitute the past (he left his heart there – can he ever get it back?), and the fact that San Francisco seems somehow sadly straight these days -- one big hetero-yuppie playground. Sigh, oh sigh, ye fags and dykes! Sigh for what was and what will be!

I guess I’m saying that sometimes I experience my own big hairy queerball status as an exercise in yearning, forward and backward along the timeline. My time travel romance novel with no gay people in it -- I feel at my smarmy gay girl best when I’m writing it. It’s a utopian feeling, yes indeed. A sort of gloomy, gilt edged, slightly musty utopian feeling. And -- it’s a utopia with no real people in it, a utopia without political effect . . . a utopia that’s pretty onanistic, really. A utopia without heart? I’m not saying that it’s redemptive or even good for me. It’s just . . . goddamit, it’s just the way that I feel, ok?

But seriously, folks. I feel gay lots of other times, too, I promise. Good times. Times that are all about making the world a better place for other lesbians’ children. And I’m going to try to turn my nostalgia toward plaid couches and cat art because I actually think that would be my Camp, and that unless I can achieve it, unless I can reanimate the mullet for myself and my sisters, I will never truly be free. But in the meantime, go away! The postman has just delivered a big new box full of little old paperbacks.

Onward
Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness

Backward
Edie Fake: Call the Corners

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Lelah's Girlfriend's Blog

Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness

2007-12-20T02:50:00.000-08:00

Noah, I'm guessing your mixed feelings on your first read of Left Hand of Darkness had something to do with the fact that the male protagonist and his androgynous companion never consummate their relationship. Setting aside the fact that the book was written in 1968, I think it would have been weaker if they had "done the deed" and possibly lived happily ever after. The fact that the protagonist is left to live with his regrets makes it all the more realistic, and, for me anyway, that much more powerful.

Onward
Lev Olsen: I Would Like a Large Lobster

Backward
Lelah Fern: Your Golden Sun Will Shine For Me

Related Pleasures
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Ursula K. Le Guin: For Judith
Anne Lorimer: Do Tibetans Think Iran Is In The Middle East?

Matt Thorn's Website

Lev Olsen: I Would Like a Large Lobster

2007-12-20T02:40:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: This is an excerpt from the novel You Were Never Lovelier. It is not about "sexual freedom" per se -- but it does touch on the related issues "do I like this guy?" and "why am I acting like such a jerk?"

Eric often asked his friend Jasper for advice in affairs of the heart. Jasper’s job as a professor of nineteenth-century literature gave him a surprisingly helpful perspective on modern love. Today, since the crisis was particularly severe, Eric had invited Jasper to lunch at an expensive restaurant. (It was possible to expense such lunches, since he was seeking professional advice.)

"Yesterday I met someone who I haven't seen in a long time. But you won't understand unless I tell you the back story." Eric leaned across the table and gave Jasper a puzzled look. "That's a concept I picked up from you -- ‘back story.’ Does it mean what I think it means?"

"Back story is what you have on soap operas," Jasper explained. "It's what happened to the characters before they appeared on the show. Or it can mean what happened on the show five or ten years ago."

"Well, this was more like that," said Eric. "It was in high school. You didn't know me in high school. I was different then. Thank you," he said to the waiter, who'd brought him a glass of beer. "I wasn't as, you know, as I am now."

"As attractive?"

"Mmmm," said Eric. "Anyway, I didn't have many friends and the other guys were cruel to me. They hated me. There was this one guy, Paolo Gregory. He used to -- he used to beat me up."

Jasper picked up his knife and fork. "The bastard!" he said. "But he can't get away with that any more. Where is he? I'll get him for you!"

Eric gave a rueful smile. "You don’t have to do that," he said. "But thank you." Their food arrived. Jasper began to cut up his steak.

"I saw him yesterday, at the gym," said Eric. "He hadn't changed at all. Maybe he put on a little weight," he reflected. "And could he be taller? Is that possible? Anyway, he recognized me too and at first I thought I'd just pretend not to know who he was. But that seemed stupid -- who could forget him? And besides, just being rude was too good for him."

"I agree," said Jasper.

"So I said, 'Paolo! You haven't changed a bit! Do you still beat people up?"

"That was quick thinking."

"Was it? It just kind of popped out." Eric stopped chewing and looked away as if remembering the scene.

"What happened then?"

"He turned red. I guess people with red hair must blush very easily. It happened slowly though. He slowly turned redder and redder. It was like it was sinking in. He always was dumb," said Eric vehemently. "A stupid person. He thinks slowly.”

“Did you feel better -- when he turned red, I mean?”

"Strangely, no. Anyway, then he said, 'I'm sorry about that. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry.' Apparently it had been on his mind all these years, or that’s what he wanted me to believe. He asked me if I could forgive him."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes. But I don't forgive him, of course. I just said that."

"Go on.”

"Well, then he was like, what are you doing? Where do you work? Where do you live? Again, so stupid! Did I need that?"

"Couldn't you get away?"

"You don't understand. I wanted to pay him back. I mean, turning red was just not enough. Didn't I turn red when he tried to strangle me with that scarf? So I was thinking, what can I do to get back at him, while we were having this very boring conversation. He told me where he went to college. He told me about his job. Why did he think I would be interested in that? Then it clicked. I saw what was behind it all."

"He liked you," said Jasper.

"Very good!" said Eric. He seemed surprised. "How did you guess?"

"Oh, well," Jasper said. "It’s like in Pride and Prejudice. Why does Mr. Darcy keep staring at me? I just don’t understand why he keeps staring at me. Elizabeth can’t figure it out.”

“Did Mr. Darcy give Elizabeth a knuckle sandwich?” asked Eric.

“No,” said Jasper. “Not really. Anyway, not in the version we teach at Columbia.”

“Oh, well, that’s a side issue.”

“Do you think Paolo liked you all along, and that’s why he gave you a knuckle sandwich -- I mean, why he acted the way he did?”

"Well, maybe. But I secretly liked guys then too, and I never caused them intense physical pain! I never even tried! Paolo was such a moron -- a very strong moron." Eric reflected. "I suppose this kind of thing must happen all the time. Anyway, I made short work of him. I said, would you like to go out with me on Friday? He blushed again!" Eric said scornfully. He cast his eyes down to his empty plate.

"Did he say yes?"

"Of course," said Eric. His voice had gone dull. "What do you think I should do with him?”

"Well, you know, we are supposed to forgive people," said Jasper. “George Eliot is very clear about that, and so is Charlotte Brontë -- sort of.”

Eric took some French fries from Jasper’s plate. "I can't do it," he said. "I can't forgive him -- instead, I want to hurt him as much as possible. How can I do it?"

"You know, I don't think I can help you with that.”

"Please!" said Eric. "I know it's wrong, but he made me very unhappy once. He made me feel like I was nothing! This is the only way I'll ever feel better about that time, if I get some sort of satisfying revenge."

"I'm sorry," Jasper said. He thought for a while. Something occurred to him. "Why did you come to me for advice? Did you think we specialized in revenge in graduate school? Because we didn’t."

"But you've read all those books," said Eric. "I want the kind of clever idea that people don't do in real life but write books about instead. But I really want to do it."

"Oh," Jasper said. "Well, you could arrange to meet him somewhere and then stand him up and watch him through a window. I read about that somewhere -- or maybe it was in a movie." Eric shook his head dismissively. "You weren't thinking along the lines of an S/M club?" Eric nodded happily. "I don't think that's a good idea." Eric looked regretful. "Here's one I got from the Carol Burnett show. You take him to a restaurant and you publicly humiliate him." Jasper raised his voice. "Ladieeees and gentlemen! THIS MAN used to beat me up as a child! He tried to strangle me! He broke one of my ribs! He broke my nose! He knocked out my teeth! And now he invites me out to lunch -- and says all those beautiful words to me!"

"SHUT UP!" hissed Eric. His ears had turned pink. From the other tables, people regarded them with pleased and happy expressions. "Good for you, dear!" said an elderly lady.

"Let's get out of here!" said Eric. He fled from the room. The bill was paid in the safety of the lobby. Then Eric and Jasper were outside on the street.

"That was humiliating."

"I'm sorry," Jasper said. "That was my lecture voice."

"No, that was great!" said Eric. "I mean, I didn't even break your nose, and I still feel like dirt. Public humiliation is very powerful."

"Yes, but --"

"It will destroy Paolo. What restaurant should I pick?"

"‘21’?" Jasper suggested.

"Perfect!"

Paolo was sitting at a table at “21.” He wasn’t entirely comfortable. Was he wearing the right thing? Most of the men were wearing suits. But he didn’t think he looked right in a suit -- it made him seem blocky and clumsy. And turtlenecks, of course, made him look like he had no neck. Paolo was surprised that anyone wore them at all, ever. But perhaps Eric would look good in a turtleneck, he reflected.

It had been Eric’s idea to eat at this restaurant. Looking at the prices on the menu made Paolo feel more uneasy than before, but if he ordered with care the meal would fit in his budget. He was still paying off his loans from film school. Eric, of course, had that complicated job on Wall Street and could afford anything. Paolo worked as a cameraman and preferred to cook for himself anyway. He’d offered to cook Eric a three-course dinner, including dessert, but although Eric’s eyes had shown a momentary gleam at the mention of baked Alaska, he’d called later to insist on meeting at this restaurant.

No doubt they would split the bill down the middle, as a sign they were grown up now. Everything would be fine. Unless Eric ordered something extremely expensive.... And that could easily happen, given his love of eating. Paolo remembered once watching him eat an ice cream bar in the school cafeteria -- first he nibbled off the chocolate coating, and then he licked away the vanilla ice cream which had begun to melt. It got all over his fingers and he licked them too. Paolo remembered how sticky and uncomfortable this spectacle had made him. Eric had been sitting alone at the end of a table, and Paolo couldn’t take his eyes off him. It was strange how well Paolo remembered this -- that must have been where he got the idea of baked Alaska.

These thoughts occupied Paolo for a long time, and it wasn’t until the waiter asked him if he wanted to order something that he realized that Eric was very late. Then he began to worry.

At eight o'clock, the time he'd agreed to meet Paolo at the restaurant, Eric was lying on his back on the floor of his apartment. He was concentrating deeply, with his eyes shut.

"Ladies and gentlemen, THIS MAN abused me as a child. He called me names, he hit me, he kicked me, he did even more unspeakable things to me. What unspeakable things? Never mind. And now he has the gall to invite me to dinner at this romantic restaurant. And something about beautiful words -- oh yeah, he said all those beautiful words to me." (This wasn't true, however.) "Ladies and gentleman, I'm sure you will join me in spirit as I hit THIS MAN -- whose name is Paolo Gregory, by the way, and who works for the soap opera The Guiding Light -- as I hit THIS MAN in the face with a chocolate cream pie. Whomp!"

Eric rolled over onto his stomach. "It's very humiliating," he said in a softer voice. "Ladies and gentlemen, THIS MAN punched me, kicked me and painted all over my face with acrylic paints. No, that sounds stupid. But they wouldn't come off! I had to go home in a taxi!" He sighed. "He called me ugly names -- fag, homo, cocksucker. Let me say that more clearly: cock-suck-er. This is very humiliating, isn't it? He even called me a lesbian, which wasn't exactly on the mark." Eric said this more brightly. "But he was always stupid. He used to ask me to give him the answers for homework. Why would I do that? Of course, I gave him the wrong answers, but he never seemed to notice.... Maybe he thought I was as dumb as he was!" This was said in a voice of shock. "Did he think I was going to kiss and make up? Yelch! Blech, blech, blech, phooey!"

Eric's cat walked over to Eric, sniffed him and climbed onto the back of his neck. Eric rolled over and sat up. "Mr. Whiskers!" said Eric, cradling the cat in his arms. "Did I upset you?" he asked. "Did I upset you? Did my big, bad voice frighten you? Are you humiliated?" Mr. Whiskers blinked comfortably. Eric kissed him on the nose. "You don't have to go to the horrible restaurant," he whispered. "But I'll tell you what -- I'll order something for you, and bring it home in a doggie bag. Would you like that? Would you like a little doggie to eat?" Mr. Whiskers purred. "You good cat!" said Eric. "Good, good cat. I'll bring you home a large lobster. I know what you like. A large lobster -- oh my God, look at the time!" he said, standing up. "Sorry!" he said to Mr. Whiskers, who had to jump off suddenly. "It's just that if I don't hurry he won't still be there. And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

Eric rushed out and caught a taxi. Being in a hurry calmed him, and he wasn't concerned anymore about what he would say. Besides, he loved taxis. They gave him a luxurious feeling. He never fastened his seat belt, despite anything the famous New Yorkers said in their recorded safety messages.

At the restaurant Eric spotted Paolo right away. "Oh good, you're still here," he said by way of acknowledgment of his tardiness. But this was what he always said -- it wasn't aimed specifically at Paolo. He unfolded his napkin with a flourish and carefully looked Paolo up and down, then smiled as if satisfied with something. "You look handsome," he said maliciously.

"What happened to you?" asked Paolo.

Eric opened his mouth to invent an extenuating circumstance. Then he reflected that since Paolo didn't merit any extenuation, the unvarnished truth would do even better. "I was talking to my cat and I lost track of the time." Meanwhile Paolo was thinking how attractive Eric looked, especially as he held his mouth open trying to think of what to say, and his irritation and anxiety melted away.

"You have a cat? I have a dog. He's named Pumpernickel."

Eric hated dogs. He wrinkled his nose to indicate this, and then remembered that there was no reason not to be even more explicit.

"I hate dogs," he said.

"You hate dogs? How can you hate dogs? Pumpernickel is an English bulldog. I bet you couldn't hate him if you met him."

I bet I could though, thought Eric. And again: "I'm sure I would if I met him," said Eric happily.

Paolo made no reply, however, and only sat staring at Eric with a surprised and wounded look on his face. The look and the silence began to make Eric uncomfortable. The thought of Mr. Whiskers sprang unbidden to his mind, and he opened the menu to search for lobster. There it was, Maine Lobster, $69. He closed the menu and looked up. Paolo was looking right at him, still with exactly the same expression. He's so slow, thought Eric. Still, this wasn't the way he'd expected things to be. He was forced to say something to mitigate the attack on Paolo's dog.

"I have a pathological fear of dogs, ever since I was attacked by a dog in early childhood. The larger the dog, the more pathological the fear."

This seemed to satisfy Paolo and the troublesome expression went away. Still, if he had any sense, he'd remember that I was attacked by him in late childhood, and that I ought to have a pathological fear of him, too, thought Eric.

The waiter came to take their order, but Eric couldn't concentrate because of a sudden disturbing thought. Maybe I do have a pathological fear of him -- maybe he's a psychopath! Maybe tomorrow morning they'll find me in a box somewhere! If that happens, who will take care of Mr. Whiskers?

"I'll have the Waldorf salad -- as a main course," explained Paolo unnecessarily. His trusting appeal to the waiter disarmed Eric's suspicions. These days, Paolo is nothing but a harmless vegetarian, Eric thought.

"I would like a large lobster."

"Yes, certainly. Would you like anything to start?"

Eric said no. He wanted to get to dessert as quickly as possible. He wasn't sure he was enjoying himself yet.

Eric looks uncomfortable, thought Paolo. Maybe he can't think of anything to talk about. Maybe he's nervous. "Tell me more about your cat," he suggested. "What's his name?"

"Mr. Whiskers?" Eric didn't want to talk about Mr. Whiskers. "He has a wasting disease. It's a very painful subject for me."

"I'm sorry!" said Paolo. He looked shocked. Now he's going to tell me all about someone he knows who has a much worse wasting disease, thought Eric. Probably a close relative. His eyes darted uncomfortably around the restaurant.

"That must be very sad for you," said Paolo. "I hope you have a good vet. I could find out the name of someone at the Humane Society who once helped a friend of mine. She had to put her cat to sleep. Some vets don't like to do that and just cut you off when they've reached the point where they can't do anything more for you."

Eric had two responses to this speech. The first was that Paolo seemed miraculously to have become a somewhat sensitive person these days. The second was that Paolo wanted to recommend someone to put Mr. Whiskers to sleep! Mr. Whiskers was perfectly healthy. Paolo hadn't changed at all. Eric went with the first thought.

"I didn't expect you to be so understanding," he said.

"Well, I've changed a lot since you used to know me," said Paolo with relief, as if he'd been looking for an opportunity to put this point across. Eric seemed to remember he'd said something like that before. Now he's going to tell me how much his life has changed since he came out, thought Eric. We have to talk about something else.

Paolo was wondering how he could explain to Eric that he'd become a much happier person, all because he'd summoned the courage to finally come out. Eric looked fixedly at him and said, "Is your industry a gay-friendly place to work? The soap opera industry, I mean. Tell me more about your job."

Paolo gave a sigh of relief. "Oh yeah, I'm completely out at work," he said. "It's a very gay-friendly place. It's just like the theater world, except they have jobs for cameramen -- they have no cameras in the theater."

"Duh," thought Eric. This dinner was turning out to be an unusually draining experience, and he couldn't wait for the food to come.

"In fact, a lot of the actors on the show are out -- although not to the soap press or to the public, obviously, but in their regular life."

"Oh, you don't need to tell me that," said Eric. "I've dated several soap actors."

"Really?" asked Paolo. "Which ones?"

"That's none of your business!" snapped Eric. In fact, he was aware that he'd been stretching the truth slightly -- although Philip certainly had had a part of five lines or less, and he didn't think Philip was the only one.

“Sorry,” said Paolo. “I just thought I might know them.” Eric was chewing stonily on a dinner roll, and it did seem to Paolo as if he had been too nosy. “I watch all the shows, not just my own, so I know who everyone is.” Eric continued to chew silently. “I watch them for the camera-work, not because of the stories.”

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Eric. He was conscious of having made a slight mis-statement, and decided to clear it up so that when the time for public humiliation came, he would be confident he was one hundred per cent in the right. "Philip's role was very small. I could probably say it all for you right now. He practiced it with me a hundred times. I can't remember which show it was for, only the part about not moving the body until the ambulance comes."

"That could be any show," agreed Paolo. He was relieved that Eric had opened up a little and refrained from asking anything more about Philip. "I've shot that scene myself more than once."

"Yes, I keep hearing how the shows are all becoming the same and they’re all in decline," said Eric. "Especially The Guiding Light," he added in case he was being too nice. Since Paolo in fact worked on another show entirely, this rider meant nothing to him and he nodded happily. The food came and they began eating, more at ease than they'd been since the dinner began.

"Are you going to finish your lobster?" asked Paolo.

"It's for my cat," said Eric. He spread his fingers over the plate in a protective gesture. "You can't have it!"

"I was just asking," said Paolo mildly. Eric relaxed. After all, Paolo couldn't take the lobster away by force -- not in a place like ‘21.’

"So Mr. Whiskers likes lobster?"

"Yes, he does," said Eric. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "How did you know that?"

"I made an informed guess," said Paolo. "Mr. Whiskers is a good name for a cat. Was it important for you to have a boy cat?"

"No, not really," said Eric. "Well, actually, yes, it was very important," he confessed. There, I've gone and shown him a little piece of my heart, he thought. Now I can humiliate him. "Waiter!" he called. "Can we order dessert?"

He’ll probably get a chocolate dessert, thought Paolo. And he did. Paolo politely declined dessert. "I knew you would order something chocolate," he said when the waiter left.

Eric toyed with his dessert fork. "You knew that?" he asked.

"Well, I guessed. You always liked chocolate in school," Paolo said.

"I was hardly the only one," said Eric darkly. "You think you know all about me, don't you?"

"No, I don't think that," said Paolo. "Why would I ask you out to dinner if I thought that? I could just take you out of my mind and play with you."

"Yuck!" said Eric.

“I’m sorry, that came out wrong,” said Paolo in some confusion.

“Paolo?” asked Eric, in a changed voice. He paused.

“Yes?” asked Paolo.

“This is a little difficult for me,” confessed Eric.

“Go ahead,” said Paolo in an encouraging voice. “What is it?”

"I'm going to say something to you, and then when I've finished, I'm going to hit you in the face with the chocolate surprise."

Paolo blinked. He hadn't expected that.

"I'm perfectly safe with all these fine diners around me," said Eric. "You won't dare retaliate, brutal though you are, and then I'm going to sweep out in a dramatic finish and you'll never see me again."

"This is your revenge?" asked Paolo.

"Yes!" said Eric. His face was flushed. "You were the blight of my mid-teens. You ruined my life! For years, I've hated you. No one will blame me for what I'm about to do."

"But I already apologized for all that!" said Paolo. "You said you forgave me."

"I lied!" said Eric.

A momentary hush fell over the restaurant. Their waiter appeared, carrying a large chocolate confection in a dessert glass. It was topped by a tower of whipped cream and a chocolate cookie.

"Your chocolate surprise," said the waiter, putting it in the exact center of the table. He had brought two spoons.

Eric was temporarily distracted by the whipped cream. He touched the top of the dessert with his forefinger, and absently licked it clean.

"Well, if you have to do it, go ahead," said Paolo. "I guess I deserve it."

"What if I want to eat some of it first?" asked Eric. "You think this is all for you, but it's my dessert, not yours."

He picked up his spoon. Paolo did the same.

"Put that spoon down!" hissed Eric.

"But I'm hungry," said Paolo reasonably. "My Waldorf salad wasn't big enough."

Eric did not deign to reply. He tasted a spoonful of the chocolate surprise and closed his eyes thoughtfully. Paolo watched him closely, his hunger forgotten. So far this was the only part of the dinner he'd really enjoyed. He wanted it to last as long as possible, especially if the sequel was going to be a humiliating chocolate slap in the face.

Meanwhile Eric was wondering what to do. When he remembered how difficult his speech had been during the dress rehearsal, he doubted he'd be able to get through it now. Also, he was strangely reluctant to waste this tasty dessert on Paolo. Part of him just wanted to go home and go to bed. He opened his eyes. Paolo was gazing at him with a fond expression which made him sick to his stomach.

"Well, go ahead, if you want to," said Paolo. "I'm ready for the chocolate surprise. Then we can be friends."

Eric coughed and took a gulp of ice water. "You don't understand," he said in a hoarse voice. "Maybe you thought I said I hated you in a nice way, but I didn't. Maybe you've forgotten what you did to me, but I haven't."

Paolo stirred uncomfortably.

"I haven't forgotten," he said.

"That day on the school roof in gym, when I was wearing those stupid blue gym shorts and you kicked my legs with your sneakers till they were scuffed all over? You wanted to see the pattern I guess -- that was my skin!"

"Look, I'm sorry about that," Paolo interrupted.

"And the words you called me -- some of them completely inaccurate, I might add," said Eric, his face flushed. "And do you remember those acrylic paints? And what about that time you stuck a popsicle stick down my throat so I vomited in English class -- Ms. Post blamed me!"

"Don't go on," said Paolo. "I'd take all that back if I could, don't you think I would?"

"I don't care!" said Eric. "It's too late now. Was there anything else? I'm forgetting something."

"Please!" said Paolo.

Eric stood up. "You really weren't worth this," he said. "I don't feel better at all. A friend of mine warned me that this was a mistake, but I didn't believe him. I guess maybe I really am the pathetic person you take me for."

"Wait!" said Paolo. "It's not like that --"

Eric put on his coat. "I don't want to see you again," he said shortly. He left the table. Paolo bit his thumb in a gesture of frustration. Eric paused halfway across the room and returned to take table. "I forgot this," he said, picking up the dessert glass and dumping the half-eaten contents in Paolo's lap. "He deserved it," he announced to the astonished lookers-on at the surrounding tables.

After Eric left, Paolo sat in silence until their waiter thoughtfully brought over a fresh glass of water and three napkins. "I'm sorry about this," he told Paolo. "I hope it won't affect your opinion of the restaurant. Please come back another time -- with someone with better manners, I hope."

"Thank you," said Paolo mechanically.

The waiter placed a neatly wrapped package on the side of the table. "This is your friend's lobster," he explained. He put the bill down next to it. "I didn't charge you for dessert."

Onward
Kinukitty: Let's Get It On

Backward
Matt Thorn: On The Left Hand of Darkness

Related Pleasures
Vom Marlowe: Girl Yoji
Lelah Fern: Your Golden Sun Will Shine For Me
Ariel Schrag: Wandering Hands

Kinukitty: Let's Get It On

2007-12-20T02:23:00.000-08:00

Author’s Note: This is a bit of manporn based on anime. The characters, etc. are from Weiss Kreuz, which is owned by Project Weiss. Said characters are, I kid you not, beautiful young men who work as florists by day and as deadly assassins with kitty-cat code names by night.

The Weiss Kreuz team, clockwise from right, Ken, Yoji, Aya, Omi.

©Project Weiss

Aya was acting strange.

A redundancy, obviously, but it wasn’t like Yoji really had much to go on. He could look at Ken or Omi and identify a wide spectrum of moods and emotional states -- happy, sad, millions of gradations in between. He could look at Aya and determine, basically, fuck-all.

Maddening.

Fascinating.

But tonight, for some reason, on this mission that wasn’t really any different from any of the other missions, there Aya was, waiting for him. Looking like that.

Yoji had been late getting to the check point. He’d run into a couple of unexpected minions on the way who’d required first eluding and then killing, which had slowed him down a bit. And there was Aya, with that look on his face.

It wasn’t the expression itself, of course. He’d looked worried, and then, catching sight of Yoji, hugely relieved. One might expect such a reaction under the circumstances -- but not from Aya, who was closed off and repressed and stoic in the extreme. Two expressions served for the vast majority of Aya’s interactions: a blank look that made it clear he was unaware of your existence at the moment; or kind of pissed, which covered most things from answering a polite question about whether there was any coffee to killing evil mad scientists and child torturers. They’d all come to realize that Aya wasn’t always pissed when he looked pissed, but nobody was able to reliably determine which occasion was which, so dealing with him was a total crap shoot.

“Are you all right?” Aya asked softly. There had even been some inflection coloring his usual near-monotone.

“Umm... yeah. I’m fine. Ran into a couple of emergency back-up goons, but, you know, the flies have been swatted.”

Aya looked at him assessingly, then nodded. “You look winded. Should we wait a few minutes before we head out?”

OK, now that was fucking peculiar. Aya was kind of a fascist about his mission plans, and he had a wicked sense of survival of the fittest. He wouldn’t actually leave anyone alone and possibly wounded out in the middle of nowhere just because they were late -- he probably fantasized about it, but he wouldn’t do it. At least, he hadn’t yet. But that didn’t mean he was necessarily interested in accommodating anybody’s smoking-related lung-capacity issues.

Yoji realized he was staring, with his mouth open. He closed it and nodded. “Yeah, I’d appreciate that. Thanks.”

Aya nodded and sat down on the ground. He pulled out his cell phone and called in with the information that the mission was complete and Yoji wasn’t dead after all. Then he just stared off into space, his jaw resting on his hand.

Yoji watched him a lot longer than it took to just catch his breath. He loved watching Aya -- did it whenever he got the opportunity and thought it wouldn’t get him killed. And Aya seemed awfully agreeable tonight...perhaps it was time to attempt conversation. After all, what would a man be if he didn’t try?

“Do you ever think about hell, Aya?”

Aya looked startled, then quickly regained control of his face and looked the other way. Well, that wasn’t an answer, but he wasn’t broadcasting “Die you stupid son of a bitch” vibes either, so good enough.

“You know, my mind wanders when I’m just sitting there, waiting to kill somebody. Are these guys going to hell? Am I? Because, well, I am killing the bad guys, so I’m not as bad as they are, right? But I’m still a killer, so.... Maybe Purgatory? Or is it Limbo?”

The sound of Aya’s voice surprised Yoji -- he’d kind of expected the redhead to just let him natter on until he ran out of steam. “Limbo is different from Purgatory. And the Pope got rid of Limbo. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

“What happened to the souls in Limbo, then?”

There was a brief pause while Aya presumably thought about it. “That’s why God invented Starbucks with WiFi.” Aya looked over at Yoji, face unreadable, and continued. “He moved all the souls from Limbo and put them in coffee franchises. They sit there from open to close generating spam, drinking overly harsh coffee and asking you day after day if you want to increase the size of your dick.”

“Umm...”

“No.”

“Huh? No what?”

“No, I don’t believe in hell.”

“Uh... No. Me neither, really. I was just...you know...thinking about.... Is that the kind of stuff you think to yourself all the time when you’re not talking to us?”

Long pause. “Maybe.” Aya rose abruptly and started walking to the car. The “Shut up and leave me alone” light was lit.

Yoji followed him in silence, and the ride home was unmarred by banter. Aya parked, got out of the car and walked into the house without even looking in Yoji’s direction.

Alone in the dark garage, Yoji leaned against Aya’s Porsche and lit a cigarette, thinking about his enigmatic teammate. Aya rarely spoke, and never about himself. Yoji knew more about most of his customers at the flower shop than he knew about Aya, despite a certain amount of obsessive scrutiny. Shit, they didn’t even know his real name.

Yoji couldn’t help himself -- he was beginning to romanticize the situation. Here was this beautiful, brooding, deadly stranger in their midst, this alluring man...who was about as miserable and fucked up as it was possible for one person to be.

Something truly horrible had happened to Aya -- that wasn’t really even a guess, given where he’d ended up -- and it was about all he could do to contain the anger and pain between kills. Yoji theorized that Aya didn’t worry about having a name because he didn’t really think of himself as human. The person who’d had a name had been killed by whatever had destroyed Aya’s life and made him part of Weiss.

Well, everyone reacts differently to emotional devastation. Some people pick up the pieces and move on -- or so he had read. And some people don’t bother even trying to pick up the pieces and instead just storm out into the night, determined to make the world pay. Yoji crushed out the butt of his cigarette under his boot, chuckling at himself for waxing poetic. That was always a bad sign.

He had a thing for dark, brooding bad boys. Major angst was just a big turn on.

Shaking his head, he walked into the house, squinted against the bright light of the kitchen. Ken was still up and sitting at the table; he looked over at Yoji and put down his cup of tea.

“Hey, man, you all right? We were worried about you.”

Good old Ken. He really was a nice guy, for a vicious killer.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just ran into a couple more idiots whose night wasn’t going to be complete until I strangled them. Inconvenient, but whatcha gonna do?” Yoji got a beer from the refrigerator, lit another cigarette and sat down. The ashtray was on Ken’s side of the table, and he slid it over without even being asked.

“So,” Yoji said. “How come you didn’t wait for me? Don’t you love me any more?”

“It’ll never be over between us, blue eyes,” Ken said. “Oops.” Yoji rolled his eyes, which were undeniably green, and Ken smiled. “You know, Aya just announced that he was staying -- sorry, man, but it wasn’t even a choice. Let’s see, come home and take a nice shower, or get into an argument with Aya for the opportunity to wait around in the cold, dank woods for your sorry ass.... You can imagine what a quandary that was for me.” Then he narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at Yoji closely, wondering why he’d even ask about it. “Why, did he rip you a new one for something on the way home?”

“No, he didn’t say a word. I was just...I don’t know, actually. He just seemed a little...odd.” Yoji shrugged.

Ken nodded. “He went straight upstairs, and I thought he had kind of a weird look on his face. I don’t think he’s feeling well.”

“He said that?”

“Sure. After our emotionally wrenching but cathartic conversation about his fear of commitment.” Ken paused to take another drink of tea. “Then monkeys flew out of my butt.”

Yoji snorted. He put down the beer can and stubbed out his cigarette. “Fucking smartass,” he said, getting up. “I’ve had it -- I’m going to bed too. See you in the morning.”

Heading up the stairs, Yoji shook his head and thought that if any of his dreams tonight had anything to do with either winged simians or Ken’s ass, he was going to kick it for him tomorrow.

Yoji stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Turing on the light, he jumped and choked back a little scream when he saw Aya, who was leaning against the sink and staring blankly into the mirror. Roused somewhat by the noise, Aya slowly turned around.

Deep breaths, Kudoh, deep breaths. “Aya, what the fuck are you doing?”

Aya stared at him uncomprehendingly. Lost.

“Aya.” Yoji walked over to him, started to put his hand on his shoulder, thought better of it. Whatever tender thoughts he’d been entertaining, Aya was crazy, and violent, and it was probably best to proceed cautiously. “Aya, you scared the shit out of me. You were standing in the dark, staring at yourself in the bathroom mirror. What the fuck is that all about?”

Aya was now staring sort of at Yoji’s chin, but really at something in another dimension. He looked like he might be broken.

Slowly, carefully, Yoji moved beside him and put his arm around his shoulders. Somehow, Aya was much smaller than he’d always seemed -- must be his battle aura, Yoji mused. Maybe this was the first time he’d turned it off.

“Hey, Aya.” He said it softly, almost a whisper. “What’s going on?”

“I....” Aya’s voice was so deep, so quiet. He paused, apparently unsure of how to proceed with a sentence that started with “I.” “Have you ever heard that legend, that if you stare into a mirror in the dark, you’ll see a demon?”

Yoji nodded.

“It’s true.” He smiled slightly, mirthlessly. “Same as when the light’s on.”

“Aya...”

“There’ve been...on missions, people have called me a demon. And, you know, seemed to mean it. It’s not much of a leap, really -- the hair, the eyes...the blood...the sword....” He closed his eyes. “But it happened before, too. My parents always told me those people were just superstitious fools.” The eyes opened again, now staring at the floor. “Sometimes I wonder if they just recognized the signs.” He looked up at Yoji, gave him that sad little smile again. “That’s something I think about sometimes when I’m waiting around to kill somebody.”

Yoji pulled Aya against his chest and held him. “You’re sounding a little nuts, you know?” He said it gently. “This is what happens when you don’t talk to people. You lose track of things. You get fixated on stuff and you don’t have anybody to tell you it’s bullshit.”

Aya didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away. If it were anybody else, Yoji wouldn’t hesitate to describe this as clinging. It wouldn’t pay to get smug with Aya, though, even if he did seem small and fragile for once. So Yoji didn’t say anything else, just stood there holding him.

Finally, he leaned Aya against the sink and took one step back, still holding his shoulders. “Listen, Aya, I want you to come into my room and talk, OK?”

Aya nodded vaguely.

“Good. Now, if you could just...well, you know, I came in here for a reason....” He waited for Aya to remember where he was, but nothing happened. “Aya, I need to pee.”

Aya looked at him with those far-away eyes and nodded slightly, shifting his attention back to the weather report from outer space, moving away from the sink and out of the bathroom not at all.

Pondering the dilemma for a couple of seconds, Yoji decided it was really only a minor social nicety after all. He shrugged, went over to the toilet and did his business.

He leaned around Aya to wash his hands, then took his arm and tugged a little. “All right, let’s move.” He walked them to his bedroom, pulling his teammate behind him like a small child.

Yoji guided him into the room and sat him down on the bed with no trouble. He leaned the redhead back against the pillows and settled next to him, turned to look at him, Aya, who was so fucking beautiful and, for once, not resisting anything, not at all.

Aya looked at him with an expression Yoji had never seen. His mouth was open, his breathing heavy and a little ragged; his lips were lush and pouty and full of potential. As Yoji watched, mesmerized, the glazed purple eyes drifted shut, and long, sooty lashes rested softly against satiny white skin. Aya’s head fell back into the pillows, exposing his throat. His chest heaved.

Yoji’s meditation was broken by the urgent twitching of his cock, accompanied by the reflexive tremor of his fingers, desperate to know what the skin would feel like. He rearranged himself so he was sitting over Aya, facing him. He wasn’t quite close enough to rub himself against...but, oh God, almost. Yoji’s breath hitched as he reached over to brush the hair from Aya’s face, stroking that beautiful, flushed skin...which was burning hot to his touch.

Son of a bitch, he really was sick.

Well, that kind of sucked. He’d finally gotten somewhere with Aya, and it was only because the bastard was delirious with fever.

And, upon closer inspection, asleep.

Sadly, these realizations didn’t immediately deflate Yoji’s...hopes.

Cursing quietly to himself, Yoji moved to the end of the bed, staring at the door. He was actually a little tempted to use this opportunity to further study the subtleties of Aya’s appearance.... But that would be kind of creepy. Under the circumstances, and all. In fact, he really needed to get himself away from the source of the problem. Which was a bit of a dilemma, since he couldn’t exactly go back downstairs just at the moment -- “Hi, Ken, I’m back, and look at the size of this hard-on!”

Maybe he’d sneak back down the hall and have a nice wash up before...figuring out where he was going to sleep. No, no, that was the wrong direction. Definitely best to achieve detumescence before thinking about the possibility of lying next to Aya on his bed and sleeping next to him all night, maybe accidentally rolling over in his sleep and...

Yoji stood up determinedly and got himself back to the bathroom. He’d kind of wanted to take a shower anyway. Pondering whether it was going to be a cold or a hot one, he pulled his tight, mesh t-shirt over his head and stripped off his now-painfully tight leather pants, gasping softly when his erection sprang free. Hot it is, Yoji thought, adjusting the water temperature.

He avoided thinking directly about the Aya situation, letting his subconscious turn it over and examine it from every angle while he practiced shampoo meditation, keeping his conscious mind blank as he lathered, rinsed, applied a liberal handful of his ludicrously expensive conditioner, which he ordered a case at a time over the Internet because it kept his hair from frizzing under even the most difficult circumstances, no matter the humidity or number of assailants.

He leaned against the corner of the stall to let it sit for three to seven minutes and only then allowed himself to reconsider the redhead in his bed. It had been difficult to fantasize properly about Aya up until now because Yoji just hadn’t had enough to go on. He liked to get at least a gloss of realism going in his fantasies, but until tonight, he hadn’t seen anything close to sex from Aya.

Yoji’s hand slowly drifted over the muscles of his abdomen, down to his cock, which was straining eagerly. He pictured Aya’s gently parted lips, pictured his dick sliding between them. Aya would give good head, Yoji was sure of it. He had no idea if Aya had ever given head before, or even received it, or considered either possibility. But Aya was good at anything he tried to do, and all that iron self-control promised exciting things as far as being able to control his gag reflex. Yoji imagined Aya taking him down the back of his throat, that deep voice moaning against his eager, sensitized flesh.... He came hard and rested his head against the tiled wall, catching his breath.

Oh, that was so much better.

Now Yoji remembered how tired he was, and he finished his shower, dried off and got dressed quickly. He’d just go to bed and leave Aya alone -- the bed was roomy enough to give him all the space he could need, surely. Yoji didn’t like it, but he knew a dead end when he saw one. They’d talk about it in the morning.

Or maybe not. When Yoji got back to his room, Aya was gone.

Yoji was navel-gazing. Literally. He was standing in the middle of a dark, empty warehouse -- it was always a dark, empty warehouse -- waiting to deny some dark beasts their tomorrows, and they were late, and he was bored. He was slouched against a wall, looking down, admiring the play of moonlight over his fine, fine stomach muscles, bared by his tight mesh cut-off top. You’re fucking hot, Kudoh, he thought to himself, not for the first time. How can Aya see you like this night after night and refuse to admit his attraction to you? Or, as the case may be, fail to experience any attraction?

And, just like that, Yoji was plagued by a self-doubt. Perhaps Aya didn’t like men who dressed in tight mesh cut-off tops. It would be just like him, the repressed little....

“Hey, Ken,” he whispered.

“What?” Ken hissed back.

“Do you think my outfit makes me look, you know -- cheap?”

Yoji could feel Ken’s incredulous stare piercing the darkness.

“I don’t know, Yoji,” he whispered. “Do you think this warehouse makes my ass look big?”

Tossing back an unseen glare, Yoji fell silent once more. Those fucking dark beasts had better make an appearance soon.

He looked up into the rafters, trying to catch a glimpse of Aya, although he knew it wouldn’t happen. God-damned megalomaniac and his penchant for grand entrances, anyway. The idiot was still sick and probably shouldn’t even be here, and if he had to be here, he should be on the fucking floor with the rest of them instead of crouching on a two-inch beam and trying to sink a story-and-a-half dismount with a 102-degree fever.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a small fleet of expensive foreign cars pulling up near the door opposite him. He’d have an unobstructed line of sight when they came in. What was on the menu tonight, anyway? Oh, yeah, the politically connected pornographers making snuff films. Hard to feel especially bad for them.

There was supposed to be a first round of security sent in to make sure the place was safe, and the plan was for Weiss to remain undetected until the targets’ men signaled the main party that they could enter. The next bit would be the tricky part. They needed to wait until everyone was in the warehouse and the door was closed, then kill the first round of guards before the second group got settled. Yoji and Ken would do that, and Aya would take care of the rest, striking before the targets and their immediate bodyguards could figure out what was happening or get into a good defensible position. Yoji would help if needed, and Ken would cover the door to make sure nobody got out. If anybody did get past Ken, Omi was on guard outside to pick them off with darts. You didn’t want it spilling outside, though; it was messy. Too many variables.

There were four men in the advance group, and the two targets had four more guards around them. Yoji was concealed in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to fling his wire. He was a little wound up and pulled harder than he had to, parting the first head from the first set of sloping shoulders with hardly a sound. He unspooled a second length and repeated the treatment on the second guard just as he was turning to look at his colleague. Amazing how fast Yoji could pick them off when they just stood there and let him.

He readied a third length of wire. Ken, already moving to his post at the door, reached out his claws and separated someone from his spine. The survivors were beginning to register that there was a problem when Yoji’s third victim fell. At least three hands were reaching for guns.

Didn’t do them any good.

From where Yoji stood, it looked like one man just fell to the floor for no reason at all, followed seconds later by two heads that flew from their respective bodies, also seemingly of their own volition. He hadn’t seen or heard Aya leap from his perch, land behind the six men left standing, gut one of them as he rose, and behead two more with one stroke when he got to his feet. Now that he knew where the swordsman was, Yoji could see Aya finishing off one more with a nice, clean slice across the chest, thank God. Yoji had asked him to aim above the waist when he could -- the stench of a freshly disemboweled body was stomach-turning. Of course, whether this was just a coincidence or Aya was actually endeavoring to comply, Yoji couldn’t say.

Not counting the waiting, Weiss had done less than a minute’s work so far. The remaining men were starting to run for cover, and that needed to be nipped in the bud. Yoji killed the one he could reach with his wire, the one who was most exposed, and he knew Aya had reappeared in the darkness next to one of the targets when he saw the man drop.

Normally Aya would have no problem taking the last two himself, cutting them down before they had time to get off a good shot. But Yoji could already see that the swordsman was in trouble, not moving quickly enough to get out of the sights of the last body guard, who was squeezing the trigger as Yoji dove from his hiding place. He didn’t reach the bastard in time to throw off his aim -- he saw Aya stiffen when the bullet hit, although he didn’t fall. Which meant he wasn’t dead, but you couldn’t really draw any conclusions beyond that.

Yoji got to the son of a bitch before he could aim again and slammed into him with everything he had. It was enough, and he was satisfied to hear the meaty sound of the man’s head cracking against the concrete. Then Yoji wrenched the gun from his hand and shot him between the eyes just to make sure.

That chore finished, he jumped to his feet, scanning for the last target. He heard three cracks of gunfire in rapid succession and felt his stomach lurch when he saw Aya apparently running right into it. Aya was usually pretty good at calculating what he could get away with, but then again, he’d already proven that he was off his game tonight. Yoji’s relief was overwhelming when he saw Aya’s blade connect with the target, sending the shooting arm flying. His opponent’s head followed promptly.

Aya looked over, ascertained that Yoji was all right, and sat heavily on the floor. Ken took a step toward him, then saw Yoji’s signal that he should go outside instead. They had to know whether or not everything was clear before they could decide what to do about Aya’s injury. Besides, Yoji was going to be the one taking care of him, not Ken.

Yoji sank to his knees next to Aya, who was looking a little gray. “How bad?” he asked quietly.

“It’ll be OK,” Aya grunted, leaning one shoulder into Yoji to help him balance. “Left shoulder. Bleeding’s not too bad -- wait for Ken,” he directed as Yoji started unbuckling his coat to assess the damage.

Yoji pulled his hand back, slick with blood. He wiped it on the floor.

“I fucked up,” Aya said. He paused, then added, “Thank you.”

“You’re sick. I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

Ken and Omi ran in. “All’s clear,” Omi called out. “How’s Aya?”

“Able to answer for himself,” Aya said clearly, brows knit with irritation.

Yoji smiled to himself and shifted Aya gently, working the blood-soaked coat off his injured shoulder. “Omi, do you have a penlight? Shine it over here, would you? Ken, would you cut a shirt off one of those meat puppets so I can wipe away some of this blood?”

The wound glistening wetly in the small circle of light got to Yoji far more than any of the carnage around him. Putting his hand over Aya’s stomach to brace him, he pushed the redhead forward so he could see his back, looking for an exit wound. There was one; Aya’s breath caught when Yoji wiped away the blood to look at it. He pushed Aya back to his previous position.

“It went in under his collarbone and looks like it came out clean. Ken, get me some more cloth to pack around it and we’ll put his coat back on and get him out of here.”

Aya’s head rested against Yoji’s shoulder. His mouth was open and he was breathing deeply, eyes closed in concentration. It was a way to control the pain, Yoji knew, but holding him like this felt so intimate; he had the scent of Aya’s blood, and with all the adrenalin pumping through his system, he was getting confused. This felt like sex.

Yoji took a deep breath. This was so wrong. Aya was hurt and bleeding and Yoji was getting hard. He looked down at Aya’s face and was shocked to see the redhead staring back at him now, his expression heated. They held the look for several seconds, the connection electric. It was frantic and dangerous. The blood pounded in Yoji’s temples and for a terrifying moment he didn’t think he’d be able to hold himself back.

“Um, Yoji?” Omi asked, sounding concerned. “What are you doing?”

Yoji had been leaning forward for a kiss. He checked the move and tried to moderate the fierceness of his scowl when he looked up. “Nothing, Omi. Just making sure he’s not in shock.”

Aya closed his eyes and smiled for a moment, just the slightest bit.

Ken had returned with a couple of fistfuls of clean white fabric. Omi gestured for Ken to come closer. “Look at this,” he said. “What do you think?”

Ken glanced at the gory mess on Aya’s shoulder, then back to Omi. “I’m no ballistics expert, but it looks like he got shot.”

Omi huffed. “Ken, this is no time to....”

“Will you guys shut the fuck up and put some bandages on me so we can get the hell out of here?” Aya barked.

“I can’t believe you just said that to Mrs. Thoma.”

“Your concerns about customer service are touching, Yoji. I hate to tell you this, but we’re not really florists.” Ken calmly turned the “Open” sign around and locked the door. “As far as I’m concerned, as long as I don’t kill them, no harm, no foul.”

“She’s a nice old lady, Ken.”

“Are you high? She’s a God-damned bridge troll. And if you think this was bad, you should have heard what Aya said to her last week.”

Yoji pouted fetchingly -- not that it would do him any good with Ken. It was just second nature. “Well, it’s not much of a cover if we don’t have any business,” he muttered.

Ken rolled his eyes.

“So, what did Aya say?”

“I do not indulge in pointless negativity, Yoji. Suffice to say I was as impressed with him as I have ever been.” Ken picked up a broom and started sweeping. “And speaking of being impressed with Aya....”

Every muscle in Yoji’s body tensed as he waited for Ken to continue.

“That, Yoji, was your cue to admit that you’re gay as the day is long and you’re so hot for our fearless leader that you need a pair of those M.C. Hammer pants to camouflage your hard-on every time you think about him.”

Yoji made a small choking sound.

“Did you just yelp?”

“I am not....”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, you pathetic loser. I’ve been watching you dither long enough, Kudoh. The time has come for me to set your ass straight on this.” Ken wrinkled his nose slightly. “Well, that was obviously not phrased as well as it might have been. Anyway, we’re gonna talk. Now. Make with the dramatic confessions.”

Yoji closed his eyes, feeling the stirrings of a headache. He was not going to have this conversation. Not with Ken. Not now. He could handle this on his own.

Aw, what the hell.

“I didn’t realize I’d been so obvious.”

“Must have something to do with all the blood racing from your brain for your crotch every time he walks into the room,” Ken said, snorting.

“He’s....”

“He’s hot. I know. You don’t have to be a fudge-packing ass pirate to see that -- and I mean that fudge-packing thing in the best possible way, you know.” Ken smiled good-naturedly. “He’s a good-looking guy. And he’s got that whole mysterious, strong, silent thing going on. Sort of a moodier Clint Eastwood, with more leather and buckles. So I get the basic gist of why you’re into him. What I don’t get is why you haven’t done anything about it.”

“How about the whole I don’t even know if he likes guys and he has a lousy temper and a sword thing? Do you get that?”

“Dare to struggle, dare to win, Yoji. You’ve been mooning over him for months now. And since your romantic attention span works in dog years, that’s almost a lifetime. Talk to him, for Christ’s sake.”

“Ken, he’s weird and ill-tempered. And I have to work with him no matter what. And since I rely on him to keep psychos and thugs from murdering me, I kind of don’t want him to hate me, you know? It just seems safer to cloud the issue a little at first. Leave myself a little room for frantic back-pedaling.”

“He’s not straight.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“I’ve seen him looking at your ass, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t just in a ‘Wow, I can’t believe anybody would wear their pants that tight on purpose’ way, either. Straight guys don’t look at other guys’ asses.”

“I still...Really? He checks out my ass?”

“I think you’re making this harder than it has to be. He’s a guy, Yoji. Give him a few days to heal up, then go to his room and say, ‘Aya, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I think you’re hot. Let’s fuck.’”

Yoji stared at Ken disbelievingly. “Are you trying to get me killed? I’m not just going to spring something like this on him. He’s not really a ‘go with the flow’ kind of guy.”

“You’ve been practically stalking him for going on two months and this is the best you can come up with? You must have been a hell of a detective, Yoji.” Ken shook his head pityingly.

“Ken: Can’t live with him, can’t dip him in batter for tempura,” Yoji muttered. “I’m going upstairs now to take Aya something to eat. I am going to attempt to have a conversation with him -- a conversation that will not include the phrase “let’s fuck” -- and if I manage to get him to talk to me at all, I will consider myself lucky. I hope you can work past your disappointment in me.”

“Do what you want, man. But remember the old saying.”

“What old saying, ‘Nobody likes a smart ass?’”

“The old saying I refer to is: ‘He who farts around like a candy-assed loser never finds out if Aya can tie cherry stems into a knot with his tongue or not.’”

Yoji spared Ken one look of pure hatred before leaving the shop.

He stopped in the kitchen to make a cup of tea and grab a box of Pocky. He walked upstairs, head swimming with visions of things Aya might be able to do with his mouth.

He knocked on Aya’s door, not really expecting a response; Aya didn’t feel obligated to acknowledge anyone’s existence when he wasn’t in a common area. “I’m bringing you some food,” Yoji announced, letting himself in.

Aya was propped up in bed, staring at a wall. His complexion was pasty, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was starting to look a little greasy. This would be a ghastly look on most people, but on Aya it was more of a heroin-chic thing.

Yoji put his offerings down on the nightstand. “Don’t know what’s going to happen about dinner yet, so I thought you could use a snack.”

Aya continued to ignore him.

“Hey,” Yoji said, gently tapping Aya’s good shoulder. “Drink your tea while it’s hot.”

This got Aya’s attention. He looked like he might argue, but then he just nodded. “Thanks.”

Yoji sat next to him on the bed and handed over the cup. “You look miserable. The next time you get really sick, you should wait a week or two before getting shot. Breaks up the monotony better.”

Aya’s eyes narrowed slightly, but Yoji was pretty sure this was one of those situations where Aya wasn’t as annoyed as he looked.

Yoji handed over the Pocky. He had gone out earlier to buy the vile wild yam flavor because he knew Aya liked it. Also, it was a pretty purple color that almost matched Aya’s eyes -- for some reason, that had seemed like an important detail at the time. Perhaps he was actually suffering from some sort of dementia.

Aya tore into the package. Yoji knew what he was in for and thought he was prepared for it -- Aya tended to suck distractedly on the stick before taking a bite. He’d watched this performance in fascination many, many times. Happy times.

It turned out that the maneuver actually packed a greater wallop when performed in bed.

Yoji shifted uncomfortably, looked around the room to distract himself.

He hadn’t really been able to work out a good game plan and was left with hoping talk would just materialize spontaneously, like flies from garbage. Not so. Aya didn’t seem particularly nonplussed about having him here, but neither did he feel any responsibility for entertaining him. Having eaten, the redhead resumed his important regimen of staring into space, which Yoji had interrupted earlier.

Well, there were worse things than sitting on Aya’s bed and watching him with impunity.

He watched the set of Aya’s face change slightly as his thoughts drifted, watched Aya’s eyes finally shift back to meet his. Watched him look away again.

“Don’t you even notice?” Yoji finally blurted.

Aya ignored him, then sighed, apparently changing his mind. He looked back and, with obvious reluctance, turned to face him. “What, you staring at me? Of course I notice.”

“So don’t you get it? Or don’t you care?”

Aya sighed again. “Neither.”

“What?”

“I get it, and I do care. I just pretend not to notice because I don’t want to talk about it.”

Well, that was...huh. “Does it bother you?”

“No.” Aya looked away again.

“Aya, are you straight?” Yoji really didn’t expect an answer to that.

Brief pause. “No.”

“Do you mind me thinking about you that way?”

Slightly longer pause. “No.”

“Are you celibate?”

Aya closed his eyes for a moment, one of those “God, give me strength” expressions on his face. “No.”

“Well then, what’s the problem?” Yoji flashed a wicked smile. “Come on, Aya -- ‘We’re all sensitive people, with so much to give....’”

Aya glared. “Yoji, if you don’t stop singing, so help me God I’m going to kick your ass.”

Yoji grinned. “You don’t like Marvin Gaye, huh?”

“What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ didn’t you understand?”

“Look, Aya, I....”

Now Aya looked pissed. “Is this some kind of a sport for you? Are you trying to get gigolo bonus points for picking up the most wretched asshole you can find?”

“Jesus, Aya, just how big of a jerk do you think I am?”

“Well, I’m obviously still evaluating that.”

“I’m not interested in tilting at windmills. As it were. I’m just trying to get to know you better.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to get to know me better?”

Well, this was obviously a trap, Yoji thought. Must proceed cautiously.... “Because you fascinate me. You delight me. And you make my dick dance.”

Yoji had never been able to resist pushing his luck. It wasn’t that he didn’t know when to stop, as most people assumed. He usually knew when to stop. He just didn’t want to.

Yoji wasn’t going to try to interpret Aya’s expression. He had not meant to declare himself -- bad Yoji. But having leaped naked into the void, he might as well plunge ahead.

“I don’t get it. I feel like we’ve connected a couple of times lately. But you mostly act like I’m not even there. What the hell?”

In the few minutes Aya took to decide if he was going to respond, Yoji started to feel guilty. This was somebody he supposedly cared about, and he looked miserable, and he was sick.... Just when Yoji had decided to leave him in peace, Aya started talking.

“I guess I understand the sex part -- not right at the moment,” he added, wiping his nose with a tissue. “But conceptually. The rest, though -- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You aren’t familiar with fascination or delight?”

That got a heavy sigh. “Not really. See, that’s what I’m saying. What would you be fascinated by?”

“What? You’re beautiful, you’re interesting, and I’ve come to suspect you have a really twisted sense of humor, which is obviously something I appreciate since I haven’t killed Ken yet. Why wouldn’t I be fascinated with you?”

Aya looked frustrated. “Because there’s no there there,” he muttered.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighed again. “I mean you’re making all that up. I look the way I look, and I kill people. That’s all there is. If you think you see anything else, you’re making it up.”

“Now I don’t understand. You only kill people, say, three nights a week at the most. Which means that the vast majority of your time is spent not killing people. And you exist when you’re not killing people; I know because I see you.”

This time Aya met his eyes. “I’m telling you that you obviously think you’ve figured something out about me that I keep hidden from everyone. And I’m telling you that’s bullshit. I don’t have a personality, Yoji. I’m just as two-dimensional as I seem. The only Zen you’ll find on the mountain is the Zen you bring to the mountain.”

That was so stupid and juvenile it took Yoji’s breath away -- well, except for the Zen thing, which was just kind of mystifying. “Aya, that was lame with an unbearable lameness. If you’re going to try to shake me off, you’re going to have to try harder than that.”

Aya was openly displaying a strange mix of emotions. He was annoyed, he was sad and -- Yoji would swear it -- he was amused. Yoji also realized that while Aya generally didn’t bother with facial expressions, his eyes gave a lot away.

“I used to have a personality,” he said. He spoke quietly, his voice strained almost to the point of hissing. “It got burnt away with everything else I didn’t need in order to be good at killing people. Bits and pieces of things I used to be still drift around, but basically, killing people is what I care about.”

Yoji snorted skeptically.

“You asked me about hell before. If hell existed, I’d be down on the seventh level, standing in a river of boiling blood with the other assassins, tyrants and war-mongers. Next door to the wood of the suicides. To the right of the scorching sand where fire rains down on those who committed violence against God and nature. In the same general area with the other blasphemers and sodomites, writhing in pain.”

Yoji stared.

“Dante’s Inferno. A book I was attracted to for obvious reasons.”

“Oh. Well, if there’s a special floor for assassins, I belong there too, right?”

Aya smiled slightly. “’Lusters are least dimmed among the damned.’ If you get placed by your most dominant trait, I think you’d be blowing around on the second level with the rest of the raging libertines, Yoji.”

“Least dimmed -- that would be level one, wouldn’t it?”

“Level one was Limbo. I told you, Limbo doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Aya, a man who’s analyzed which level of hell he’d be in according to Dante’s Inferno is not a man entirely lacking in personality.”

Staring down at his blanket-covered lap, Aya seemed to be struggling with something. And, just like that, the clouds parted and he smiled. It was a sheepish smile, but a real one. He muttered something Yoji didn’t catch.

“What did you say?”

Aya looked up. “I said I took a test on the Internet.”

“What?”

“You answer questions and it tells you what level of hell you belong on.”

Yoji laughed. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. Can I play?”

Aya shrugged. “Just Google ‘levels of hell.’ You’ll find it.” Then his smile widened. At Yoji’s curious expression, he shrugged and said, “That just reminded me of a trip my family took when I was little. We had my grandfather in the car, and we drove forever, like 500 miles. And every time anybody cut us off or was speeding or something, my grandfather would shake his fist and yell, ‘Drive like hell, you’ll get there!’” He shrugged again. “I told you, things shake loose sometimes.”

Oh, yes -- Houston, we have progress. Must keep him talking.

“Hey, I was wondering about that thing you said about demons. Do you remember? In the bathroom?”

Aya’s eyes widened slightly.

“OK, see, you thought something there. Tell me. Tell me what you just thought.”

Aya frowned. “I thought: ‘Oh. That really happened, then.’”

“Oh, yes. On a scale of one to ten, how indicative of your average level of angst was that?”

Aya hesitated, clearly not eager to answer the question. “Um, maybe a six?”

“Compared with an average, everyday angst level of what?”

Considering the question for nearly a minute, Aya finally said, “Three.”

“I see.” Christ, ten must be fucking terrifying. It was also kind of heartbreaking to realize the pain he’d seen that night was alarmingly close to Aya’s baseline. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

“So, Aya, tell me something about yourself.”

Aya looked confused. “I just did.”

Yoji sighed. “Toss me a bone, OK?”

“I’m allergic to cash register tape.”

“What?”

“It makes the skin on my fingers peel and bleed. See?” Aya shoved his right index finger in front of Yoji’s face so he could appreciate that yes, the skin on Aya’s finger was in fact peeling and bleeding. Gross.

Kind of cute, though.

“Tell me something else.”

Aya frowned. It didn’t have its usual force; more of a pout, really. Also cute. Life was looking up.

“I hate Eric Clapton.”

“You...hate Eric Clapton.”

“That’s what I said.”

Yoji waited, then prompted, “Go on.”

“Well...the convenience store down the street. The last two times I went there, they were playing Eric Clapton. I refuse to go there now. The first time might have been carelessness, but twice -- that starts to feel like an intentional affront.”

“What song?”

“’Backless.’”

“Which one is that?”

“’I don’t care what you do at night, oh, I don’t care how you get your delights; we’ll leave it alone, we’ll just let it be; I don’t love you and you don’t love me -- la la, la la la, la la...”

“Um, is it that song, or Eric Clapton’s entire ouvre?”

“It’s just Eric Clapton overall. He’s a bottom-feeding hack.”

Yoji nodded. Suddenly, he remembered something he was burning to know.

“Hey, what did you say to Mrs. Thoma?”

“What?”

“Ken said you insulted Mrs. Thoma last week. What did you say to her?”

Aya appeared to be trying to pull up the information from his customer confrontation database. Admittedly, he did have a fairly adversarial relationship with a number of the people who came into the store.

“Did you use the C-word?”

“The what?” Aya’s brows knit in confusion, then dipped deeper in annoyance. “No!” Pause. “The C-word?” He rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Yoji,” he finally muttered.

“Well, what was it?”

“She complained that I wasn’t being responsive, and I told her I’d like to see things from her point of view but I couldn’t get my head that far up my ass.”

“Aya! She’s a nice lady!”

“She’s an abomination.”

“I don’t know why you and Ken hate her so much. I’ve never had any trouble with her.”

“Right. I guess your rapport with females over the age of 18 truly knows no bounds.” Aya suddenly found something on the blank wall across the room that captured his attention utterly.

Now, admittedly, Yoji’s brain was working at a bit of a delay in processing this bizarre and unexpected conversation. But his initial interpretation of that last comment was that Aya was jealous and that Aya hadn’t meant to let it slip that he was jealous. But of course that wasn’t possible. Was it possible?

“Aya, are you jealous?”

“No. ‘Disgusted’ would be a better word.”

“Explain.”

“No.” Aya met Yoji’s eyes again, and this time he meant business. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it. Thank you for the Pocky. Please leave.” Once again, the sheer force of Aya’s will and Aya’s hatred changed everything. Yoji felt himself getting up and heading for the door, almost as if he had no say in the matter.

And he didn’t. Aya wouldn’t say another word now if Yoji tortured him, and being in the same room with him was suddenly almost physically painful.

What the fuck? Aya really had been more approachable since getting out of the hospital last week -- Yoji had started to think he was making progress with the petulant, bi-polar son of a bitch. But maybe it had just been an unexpected side-effect of the antibiotics, or possibly a temporary change in barometric pressure. Or maybe Aya’s personal Glasnost just didn’t quite extend the length of an entire conversation.

Whatever. Melodramatic little prick.

Yoji slammed the door on his way out.

Yoji stormed into the kitchen.

“Ken, is it too much to ask for you to make a full pot of coffee in the morning instead of just two cups?”

“Oh, fuck off, Yoji. Make your own damned coffee.”

“Big words from a man wearing a plaid flannel dress.”

“It’s a nightshirt,” Ken said, mustering up admirable dignity under the circumstances. “It’s a man’s nightshirt.”

“Oh, of course. It’s a very manly dress.”

Aya, who had just appeared from out of nowhere -- as he tended to do -- cleared his throat. “I’ve always thought Black Watch was the toughest tartan, Ken.”

Ken opened his mouth, then closed it, staring at Aya. The room was silent. Was that a joke? Was he serious? No way to know. Aya had been making occasional efforts to interact recently, but it wasn’t like anybody could necessarily tell what he meant by them.

Aya nodded. “Black Watch is the black leather jacket of plaid. It’s much cooler than, say, Dress Campbell, or even Royal Stewart.”

And with that, he went upstairs.

Ken and Yoji looked at each other. “Yoji, do you think his fever’s back?”

“Hell, I don’t know.” Yoji shook his head. “But I guess if Aya thinks your dress is tough, Ken.... Well, he should know, right?” And Yoji followed Aya out of the kitchen.

He’d spent the last two days trying to figure out what to do about Aya. Yoji wasn’t stupid -- it was fairly clear what he should do. He should run. He should quit smoking so he could run faster. Aya could not possibly be worth the trouble, no matter how good he looked, no matter how good he might be in bed -- and while his proficiency in that regard was an educated guess, Yoji had to keep reminding himself it really was just a hypothesis -- no matter how cute it was when he rambled like a bag lady...no matter how good it felt to get a glimpse of what was going on in his head, or how those rare little smiles made the chocolate of Yoji’s savoir faire melt and expose the gooey caramel center that was his heart....

Yoji stopped in the hallway and actually banged his head against the wall. The mild pain cleared his head slightly, and he proceeded up the stairs. He hesitated outside Aya’s door, decided that knocking would only add another layer of frustration, and walked right in. Aya was sitting on his bed.

Yoji decided the best defense was a good offense. “What the hell is your problem, anyway?”

Aya just looked at him blankly, with a mildly quizzical set to his eyes, as if he were thinking, ‘Did that horse just speak? How curious.’”

“Could you at least pretend to be a human being for a few minutes?”

Aya’s eyes narrowed, the look shifting more to “that horse has annoyed me; perhaps I will kill it.”

Yoji closed his eyes and counted backward from 10.

They’d been avoiding each other since the last bout of emotional whiplash. It wasn’t difficult; Aya was spending most of his time in his room, so Yoji had just stopped making up excuses to go in there. Yoji’d hoped that, given a little time and distance, he’d finally be able to talk himself out of this terribly misguided crush. Failing that, he’d hoped he’d at least cool down enough to avoid a potentially dangerous outburst.

Two strikes; one more and he was out.

He sat on the edge of the bed and decided to try again from another angle.

“Here’s how bad I have it for you. Yesterday I started humming ‘Hello’ when I walked past your doorway. You know, that Lionel Ritchie song? ‘I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile, You’re all I’ve ever wanted and my arms are open wide.... Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clue....’”

Aya looked absolutely dumbstruck.

Yoji began to wonder if “Hello” might have been a tactical error.

“Aya, I’m beginning to feel pretty exposed here. Could you try to say something?”

After several more long, unnerving moments of utter disbelief, Aya finally threw back his head and laughed.

Yoji sighed in relief.

Wiping his eyes, Aya tried to stifle the last of his giggling. “You are such a goofball.”

Goofball...not as good as sex god, but better than dead man. “Aya, listen. I know what you were doing the other day. I’m not actually even taking it personally. But I’m fundamentally a pretty lazy person, and I don’t have the emotional energy to deal with you clouding up and raining all over me every time we try to have a conversation. So let’s just be honest with each other, OK?”

Aya’s smile faded. “And what do you think I was doing the other day?”

Eye on the prize, Kudoh, eye on the prize. “I think you were enjoying being with me, and then you got freaked out about it and decided to scare me off.”

After a long, ominous pause, Aya sighed. “Close enough.”

Yoji remembered having read somewhere that the most important thing in training an animal is immediate positive reinforcement. This was definitely a Milkbone moment.

“As a reward for your honesty, I’d like to give you a backrub.” At Aya’s dubious expression, Yoji said, “Oh, stop it. I’ve made it clear that I want to get my hands on you. You’ve made it -- well, not clear, obviously, but close enough -- that you’re at least willing to entertain the idea of having my hands on you. It’s just a backrub. Lie down.”

Aya stared at Yoji for several seconds, squinting in concentration. Then he lay down on his stomach, moving carefully, obviously having trouble with his shoulder and not bothering to hide it. A new level of intimacy?

Well, smack my face and call me Irving, Yoji thought to himself. He climbed atop his unexpectedly tractable teammate and got started without further ado -- when you’ve got your enemy in your sights, you pull the trigger. Or throw your wire or reach out with your knife-festooned baseball mitt or generally cause death with whatever improbable and archaic weapon you have at your disposal, if you happen to be part of Weiss. Whatever...Yoji believed in seizing the day.

And he knew for a fact that he was good at this massage thing. Giving a backrub, in his experience, was kind of like giving head -- everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Yoji excelled in both areas because he was not only willing to do what needed to be done, he really enjoyed the ride.

Yoji slid his hands under Aya’s loose white t-shirt, bunching it up over his upper back and running his hands up and down the skin he’d exposed. He had to pause and take a deep, shaky breath, then another when Aya shifted beneath him, flexing his hips ever so slightly against Yoji’s cock. It had to be on purpose -- unless it wasn’t. Keep your wits about you, Yoji, he chided himself.

Yoji kneaded and prodded and pulled, trying to loosen the muscles knotted up from Aya’s wound. And from Aya’s being Aya. Occasionally he’d allow himself a few moments of simply stroking Aya’s satiny skin. Yoji loved giving a massage, feeling his partner’s skin, the muscles beneath, all resistance finally giving way beneath his questing fingers.

However, Aya wasn’t making the appreciative little sighs and moans Yoji was used to under these circumstances, nor was he reduced to a pile of pliant, turned-on manflesh beneath Yoji’s knowing hands.

“Aya, what’s going on with you right now?”

“You’re, you know...I’m not used to full scrotal contact with my coworkers. It’s kind of freaking me out."

“I’m getting the feeling you aren’t fully committed to relaxation,” Yoji said.

Aya shot him a look over his shoulder.

“Come on, Aya. Relationships are built on trust.”

Aya shot him another look. “I like to maintain a certain level of surface tension. I’m not sure what would happen if I fully relaxed.”

“Work with me here, Aya.” Yoji shifted further down and, pulling down the waistband of Aya’s loose flannel pants, started rubbing low on his back. Eliciting a definite flinch of pain.

“Am I to assume you have some soreness in the upper butt region?”

“Don’t assume anything about my butt, Kudoh,” Aya said dangerously.

Yoji sighed. He looked down at the back beneath him and thought that it was indeed beautiful, and that he’d love nothing more than to make it arch in passion, or perhaps drag his lips and tongue slowly down Aya’s spine, all the way down.... Well, now he was full-on hard. And Aya had to be able to tell. But he wasn’t complaining, and where there weren’t tears and recriminations, there was hope.

Yoji kept at it until his arms were sore and his own back and shoulders ached. But the man beneath him resisted every effort.

“Aya, are you OK? I mean, I know you’re the angstiest person in the world, but surely you could have loosened up at least a little bit. I’m rubbing your back, not taking out your appendix.”

Another long pause, then a soft, gusty sigh into the pillow. “My head is throbbing, my shoulder aches, my stomach hurts, I think I’ve developed carpal tunnel from repetitive killing, I’m hungry, and I’m generally dissatisfied with the prime minister’s position on monetary policy.”

“Otherwise, though, you’re fine.”

“The list was in no way meant to be comprehensive. Now get the hell off me before I throw you off and tear my stitches.”

So much for the inevitability of the sexy backrub trick. Yoji really was beginning to feel less confident about his standing as the reigning pompatus of love, and it annoyed him. He took off his shirt lay down beside Aya, saying, “OK, now you’ve made me tense.”

Yoji caught a glimpse of Aya’s face -- confused. Well, that was satisfying, at least.

“It’s your turn to rub my back. It’s a ‘you break it, you bought it’ kind of thing.”

He lay there for several minutes. He was beginning to feel like an idiot. When, unbelievably, Aya got up and kneeled over Yoji’s lower back. Damn, Yoji thought, I should have started giving him direct orders long ago.

Aya’s hands rested on Yoji’s shoulders, his touch somewhere between tentative and tender. His fingertips stroked the nape of Yoji’s neck, over and over until Yoji felt himself getting hard again. The fingers moved to the sensitive skin just behind Yoji’s ears, moving in longer strokes, but just as delicate, before sliding up to trace soft circles over his temples. Aya was now laying over him, his breathing soft and warm against Yoji’s back. There was a brief touch of lips that Yoji found unbelievably hot.

Aya caressed Yoji’s face as he moved his hands down to the blond’s shoulders, sitting up again in one smooth movement and applying increasing pressure, still using just his fingers. It felt surprisingly sensual, although the technique was probably born of necessity, since Aya wasn’t supposed to use his left shoulder.

Yoji shivered with a sudden ripple of pleasure, thinking of how strong Aya was. And heavy. Despite the loss of contact, it had been something of a relief when Aya had sat up again. All that muscle.... It was exciting to be pinned beneath that strength. Was that something Aya had intended him to be thinking about? Yoji moaned softly and was rewarded with a hitch in Aya’s breathing. Maybe he needed to be on top? That would figure, actually. Well, that wasn’t how Yoji had envisioned things, but he could roll with the punches.

Yoji had briefly entertained the idea of holding out on Aya, but in reality, that had never been an option. As Aya’s fingers slowly worked all the muscles in Yoji’s neck, shoulders, and upper back, Yoji had become utterly relaxed and thoroughly aroused. Which was a hell of a lot better than trying to teach Aya a lesson, anyway. If such a thing were even possible.

Aya scooted backward, slowly and deliberately rubbing his erection over Yoji’s body as he resettled on the blond’s upper thighs. His hands progressed, maddeningly slowly, over Yoji’s lower back and, finally, to his ass, which he played with for long enough to turn Yoji’s brain to complete mush. Aya’s fingers alternated between deep, strong strokes and gentle, sensual caresses. Yoji cursed his lack of foresight in not changing out of his jeans and into something more accessible.

And then Aya just stopped. He got off Yoji and sat back against his pillows.

Yoji groaned. “Aya, are you trying to prove a point here?”

“No. I was just...done.”

“You’re just done?” Yoji rolled over on his side to stare at the redhead, feeling aggrieved and petulant. “That is so unfair. You totally upped the ante, and now you’re not going to follow through?”

Aya looked tired. “I know. I’m sorry.” He looked pointedly down at his lap, drawing Yoji’s attention to the fact that he was no longer remotely hard. “I’ve, um...never done it with anyone I actually...like. Or know, really.” He shrugged his good shoulder. “I try to keep my distance.”

Yoji realized it might be appropriate to offer some kind words of understanding, but Aya didn’t really seem particularly distressed about it, and, well, Yoji’s language centers were working with a skeleton crew because all his blood had rushed to his cock.

“Would you mind if I jacked off?” Yoji asked.

Aya stared at him. “We’ve definitely crossed a line, haven’t we?”

“Uh...yeah. Kind of.”

Aya sighed again, then nodded. “I just wanted to, you know, understand the mission parameters.”

He appeared to be thinking about something. Something else. Something far away. Eventually, his gaze shifted and he was watching Yoji, his head cocked slightly to the side.

Yoji tried again.

“Aya, you make me so hard.” He stroked himself, slowly, and looked up to see Aya avidly watching the movement of his hand. “I need to come, Aya. OK?”

Aya seemed a little out of it, and his breathing sounded harsh in the quiet of the room. He nodded, still staring at Yoji’s crotch.

Yoji unzipped his pants and pushed them down a bit on his hips, allowing his erection to spring free. He gave it a couple of good tugs, watching Aya the entire time. The redhead’s eyes were glazed.

He rubbed the head of his cock with his thumb, spreading around the bead of moisture leaking out. Aya distractedly brought his hand up to his face and bit gently on his knuckle.

Oh, this was working.

Yoji stroked his sac, rolling his balls between his thumb and fingers. Aya watched his every motion as if trying to memorize them.

“I do this all the time in my room, thinking about you.” Yoji’s voice was deep and rough. Aya’s eyes widened. His face looked flushed.

“I wonder how you would do it. I see how you hold your sword, and I wonder if that’s how you’d hold my dick. You have such a good, firm grip....” Yoji started stroking himself. “Your hands are so strong....” He shivered, then reached a rhythm he knew would bring him off soon. The idea of coming in front of Aya was....

“Shut up and come,” Aya said.

Yoji closed his eyes and spurted all over his stomach. He kept his eyes closed as he tried to catch his breath. He opened his eyes to find Aya still watching avidly. Looking like he’d regained his interest.

Aya perfunctorily handed him a box of tissue. Yoji mopped himself up quickly, then checked to make sure the capricious redhead was still with him.

He cupped Aya’s erection, stroking through the thin, loose fabric of his pants, looking up to see if Aya’s face was as happy with this development as his cock seemed to be.

He was disappointed to see the eyes closed, having hoped Aya might be the kind to watch everything unabashedly. This was good too, though: eyes closed in rapt concentration, head thrown back, mouth open, tongue unconsciously tracing his teeth....

Yoji leaned down and put his mouth over Aya’s cock, running his lips up the length and sucking the head through the cloth. Aya gasped and tangled his fingers in Yoji’s hair, which Yoji also took for a good sign.

Until Aya pulled the hair viciously and pushed him off the bed.

“What the hell?” Yoji asked from the floor.

Aya’s breathing was fast and harsh. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I didn’t ask you to come after me, though. And it isn’t like you didn’t already know I’m defective.”

Yoji opened his mouth to counter, but Aya cut him off.

“I hate you for caring about me. The idea that anybody could know what I am and like me anyway, it’s...repulsive.”

By the end of his little speech he had his breathing back under control, along, apparently, with the rest of his body.

Why the hell, if there was anybody else left on Earth, had he chosen this completely irrational freak to fall for? Yoji adjusted himself into a comfortable cross-legged position and looked up at the source of all his troubles.

“Aya, you just have to let yourself go a little bit.”

“Believe me, Yoji, nobody wants that to happen. It will anyway, someday, but nobody will be happy about it.”

“I’m beginning to think you have a lot invested in being the most fucked up person in the world.”

“Everybody needs structure.”

“Looks to me like you’re afraid. Do you think I’ll, you know, love you and leave you?”

Aya snorted, then shook his head. “You may believe your own press, Yoji, but I don’t. If anything, it’s more the opposite, you gluey tart.”

Well, that was offensive. Wasn’t it?

“Wait a minute. You were jealous.”

“When?”

“Before. You weren’t just jealous -- you were jealous of Mrs. Thoma. A grating 60-year-old woman with three chins and more moles than you can shake a bake at.”

“I thought she was a ‘sweet old lady.’”

“See, you do remember!”

Aya frowned.

“So, you hate me, you’re jealous, or you’re afraid I won’t give you enough space? Which one?”

“Yes.”

Yoji cocked his head, started to ask the question, then stopped himself.

“Right. Let’s start with jealous. Why? Why are you jealous?”

Aya hesitated, obviously reluctant to continue the conversation. “You flirt with everyone. Fucking everyone. Mrs. Thoma. Multitudes of mindless, giggling school girls. Ken. Omi, for Christ’s sake. Everyone.” He paused, then added, very quietly, “Everyone but me.”

Oh, baby.... Now that was heartbreaking. Or it would be, if it weren’t a well-executed but still obvious diversionary tactic.

Aya saw the awareness in Yoji’s eyes and lifted his head, jaw set defiantly.

“Yet at the same time you hate me and think I’m...gluey.”

Now Aya smiled, just one corner of his mouth quirking up. He nodded. “What can I say? I worry about lots of things. I like to feel like I have all the bases covered.”

Yoji shook his head. You just had to admire it, really, the depth and breadth of the craziness.

Then he grinned. “You like me, though. You said so.”

Aya looked startled. “When?”

“A little while back. You cited it as the cause of your erectile dysfunction. It stuck with me.”

Aya was beginning to look a little hunted.

“I’m going to get up now and sit back on the bed. If you attack me again I’ll fight back.” He plopped down next to Aya, who skittered a few inches away, avoiding contact.

Yoji looked at him, then smiled. Fucking hell. He was perfect.

“Aya, you’re stubborn and irksome and I’m pretty sure clinically insane.” Aya was starting to frown. “What can I say? I like that in a crush object.”

Aya shifted to the end of the bed.

“Look, I’m not that bad. Really. Give me a chance. Seriously, what’s the problem?”

“Yoji, I don’t know what I want, all right?”

“Free your ass and your mind will follow.”

Again with the staring.

“Give it up -- if you weren’t into me you’d have disposed of my lifeless corpse by now. Let’s just fuck already.”

Yoji couldn’t control his sense of triumph. This was it -- he’d done it. He’d gotten through to Aya.

He saw the fist coming but didn’t have time to react before it struck his chin from the side with surprising force. Part of his brain managed to notice that he really was seeing stars, but then everything just turned black.

Yoji was disoriented. Something was poking at him, waking him up. And while that sort of thing usually pissed him off, he was really uncomfortable, so waking up didn’t necessarily seem like such a bad idea, now that he thought about it. He opened one eye and saw Ken staring down at him from a great height. What the hell?

“The road to love is paved with toads,” Ken said, reaching out a hand to help Yoji up.

Oh, yeah. It all came back to him.

He let Ken haul him off the floor of the hallway, where he’d been lying in front of Aya’s door.

“Not the most dignified situation, huh?” Ken offered conversationally, following Yoji into his room.

“No.”

“So, he turned you down, then?”

Yoji narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

Ken inspected the impressive bruise on Yoji’s jaw. “Well, you know, for Aya, that could be foreplay.” He held up his hands in supplication. “Sorry.”

Yoji muttered darkly.

“This probably isn’t the best time to remind you that you have a surveillance mission with him tonight, I guess.”

“And yet you do so with such ill-concealed glee.”

Ken smiled. “Don’t worry, Yoji. You’ll get through it. It’s not like you’ve never been mad at him before.”

“This is different. This time it’s personal.”

“Theoretically, I know I shouldn’t pry. But what the hell happened?”

“Fuck you, that’s what happened.”

“You may as well just tell me now and spare us both the trouble of making me goad you into it.”

“I tried to talk him into having sex with me. He declined. In his own inscrutable, violent way.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Actually, I got desperate enough to try your suggestion. I just asked him to fuck.”

Ken raised his eyebrows. “Well, they can’t all be gems. I really would have expected Aya to appreciate the direct approach, though.”

“Not so much, it looks like.”

“Maybe it was your delivery.”

Yoji shot him a look of death.

“Well, you know the old saying.”

Yoji raised an eyebrow.

“Aya’s nuts. Go figure.”

Yoji was thoroughly disgruntled. He was sitting in a white delivery van, parked amid a flock of other white delivery vans in the parking lot of a building way the hell out on the outskirts of nowhere, waiting. Just sitting there for hours and hours and hours. Silent hours. Tense, uncomfortable hours. Watching to see who was going to show up, if anyone.

At least he had the passenger seat, since Aya had insisted on driving. Yoji was certain it was safe to read things into that, Aya always having to drive.

Yoji had volunteered for this stupid mission several days ago, when he’d still had hope. Aya had accepted it because it was all he could do until he healed more, and Yoji had accepted it because he would have actually paid for the opportunity to sit next to Aya all night. It had sounded good at the time.

Yoji’d had plenty of time to ruminate on how big a mistake he’d made in falling for his grim, challenging teammate. It was like being addicted to crack, but less satisfying. Enough was enough, though -- Yoji drew the line at being sucker-punched and left for dead in the hallway. He was going to move past this debacle and...something....

He kept getting distracted by Aya’s profile in the moonlight, which he kept accidentally staring at. Aya’s skin looked luminous, and although the drama of his coloring was masked, that face was more than enough to carry the show.

Aya wore his usual blank, brooding expression -- cold bastard. Cold, moody, sadistic bastard. He could have just said no, couldn’t he?

The real question, of course, was why he hadn’t just said yes. Or why he’d rescinded his yes -- because he might not have said it out loud, but he’d certainly consented.

This mission was going to drive him crazy. Nothing was happening, nothing was going to happen, and Aya was going to make them sit here staring silently at that damned building all night.

“How would it work?” Aya asked, apropos of nothing.

“Um -- what?”

“How would it work?” He turned to face Yoji, looking like he expected an answer.

Yoji sighed. This was the kind of thing that kept drawing him back in. Aya just didn’t understand the rules of social interaction. He was a clueless, sociopathic dork and, God help him, Yoji couldn’t resist that to save his life.

“What are we talking about, Aya?”

Aya frowned, leading Yoji to a sudden realization about how far he’d really come. Fairly recently, he’d have taken the frown to mean that Aya was irritated at Yoji for being too stupid to read Aya’s mind; now he knew the frown was an expression of Aya’s intense annoyance at not being able to express himself. Heartening, that.

“Us,” Aya finally said. “I can’t imagine it at all. And when I can’t picture something, it makes me...uneasy.” Seeing Yoji’s expression, he added defensively, “Look, it keeps me alive.”

Yoji shook his head, smiling. “You know, there would be nudity, sweat, gasping and moaning....”

Aya favored him with a fairly patient version of his “Christ, you’re stupid” look. “The sex isn’t what I’m worried about, Yoji.”

Meaning the part he was worried about was -- what? Yoji frowned.

Aya waited for his answer, apparently thinking he’d made himself clear.

“I’m sorry, Aya, I’m still not quite following you.”

Brows knitted in frustration, Aya tried again. “What I don’t understand is everything but the sex. From what you said before, you want more than just sex, right? That’s what that bizarre musical interlude was about, wasn’t it?”

Yoji nodded mutely.

“Well, what would that part be like? The non-sweaty part?”

A lot like this, Yoji was beginning to realize. And the thing was, he was pretty sure he’d be able to deal, if he could get some sex thrown in.

Aya frowned, apparently having an insight of some sort. “I should have fucked Masaki,” he muttered to himself.

“Did you mean to say that out loud?”

Aya looked startled.

“That’s what I thought. You already realize you’ll have to tell me -- I see it in your eyes.”

Aya sighed. “When I was 17, I started hanging out with this girl. Weird girl -- she’d suddenly decide her chakras were out of whack and get on the floor and do yoga. Anyway, we went out to clubs together, and she introduced me to her friend Masaki. He really -- did something for me. It was the first time I’d ever felt this, you know, overwhelming attraction to someone. Well, one night we were all out dancing, and Masaki took off his shirt, and it... moved me. Things were progressing, but my friend pulled me away and told me I was absolutely not allowed to sleep with him. He was trouble or something.” Aya snorted. “I went along with it to avoid a fight; I figured, well, tomorrow’s another day. Of course, it turned out there never was another day....”

“No?”

“No. Things happened, I turned in my humanity to become a paid killer, yada yada.” He shrugged casually.

“Ah. And I assume this anecdote is connected in some way to the situation at hand?”

“Well, if I’d just slept with him that night, I’d know how to handle this.”

Right. Just a couple of dots left to connect, Yoji thought to himself.... Oh! He meant that he was also overwhelmingly attracted to Yoji! Now, that was helpful; it’s not like it really showed or anything. And there was nothing to be gained from pointing out his inconsistencies; the road into Aya’s pants was filled with maddening switchbacks and sharp, dangerous curves.

“Surely I’m not the only person who’s rocked your world since then?”

Aya frowned again. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Damn it, Aya, this is so unfair. You started it.”

“And I’m ending it. We’ve come full circle.’

Yoji squeezed his eyes closed, trying to ease the pressure building inside his skull.

Aya watched him dispassionately. “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”

Yoji nodded. So true. He looked away from his tormentor and tried to summon up some of that righteous indignation he’d been stoking earlier, but all he had was an impossible, all-consuming desire to connect with this sexy, deranged lunatic.

Then inspiration struck. His error was in trying to reason with Aya, who was obviously not on consistent speaking terms with reason. Aya was erratic, unbalanced and confused. He was also all about action, not words. What was needed was a demonstration, not a lecture. Yoji turned back to him and smiled. “It would be like this.”

He cupped Aya’s face in both hands and kissed him tenderly. He slid one hand into Aya’s hair, fingertips stroking the back of his head. For a moment he fancied he was touching Aya’s tumultuous thoughts -- which he suddenly envisioned as a tangled mess of black spiders. He jerked his hand down to the back of Aya’s neck, forcing himself to move past that bit of imagery.

It was easier to do when Aya started kissing back. Yoji pressed his teeth into Aya’s lower lip, eliciting a soft sigh. Yoji leaned closer and stroked the corner of Aya’s mouth with his tongue. Aya parted his lips, but Yoji held back -- Aya needed to learn about tenderness, and nobody was getting any younger.

Yoji knew he was getting somewhere when Aya crawled into his lap, straddling him. Yoji slid one arm around Aya’s waist and slid his mouth over Aya’s jaw and down his neck, pressing his lips over Aya’s frantically pounding pulse. It made his chest ache. Yoji unbuttoned the first four buttons of Aya’s shirt and slid it back over his shoulders, moved his hand under the cloth to feel the hard, sleek shoulder muscles and the solid, flat planes of his chest. Yoji kissed down the sternum and rested his head against the ribs, listening to the pounding of Aya’s heart. Aya rested his head on Yoji’s shoulder.

They sat that way for a long time.

“Does that answer your question?”

“Yes,” Aya whispered.

“So, what about the surveillance?”

“Fuck the surveillance.”

Aya was blowing off a mission. Yoji was pretty sure that was the first horseman of the Apocalypse.

What in the name of hell was going on with him? Yoji wanted to talk, but he hesitated because talking to Aya always led to grief, and he felt so good right now. His brain was just deciding to leave well enough alone when his mouth said, “So, why are you giving in now?” Stupid mouth. It did some good work occasionally, but he knew this was a mistake from the first syllable.

Aya barely hesitated. “I’m desperate.”

Yup -- mistake. “That isn’t very flattering.”

“It is what it is.”

Yoji raised an eyebrow, hoping Aya actually cared enough about him to explain -- he was sick of begging.

Aya shifted as if to move away, but then decided to stay where he was, speaking into Yoji’s neck. “Every time I try to explain myself, I sound like a melodramatic, overwrought idiot.”

“You have a unique rhetorical style, but I wouldn’t say you sound like an idiot. Besides, we live kind of melodramatic, overwrought lives. And on top of that, I’m frantic to find out anything at all about what you could possibly be thinking. So don’t worry ‘bout me.”

Aya snorted in irritation, but he tried again. “It’s kind of like being in a blizzard. But with, you know, self-loathing and hatred instead of snow. You can’t find your way and eventually you’re tempted to just lie down and let it cover you over,” he said, putting a finger to his temple. “I need a way out,” he muttered.

“Well, that’s actually much better. I can help you with that.”

“But you want...I don’t have anything for you. I just want....”

“It’s OK,” Yoji interrupted. “It’s enough.” He pushed at Aya’s chest. “Get off for a minute.”

Aya complied and Yoji ducked through the curtain behind them, into the back of the truck. “Come on,” he added when Aya didn’t immediately follow.

Yoji lay down on the floor. “Come here.”

Aya cocked his head. “I thought you wanted to fuck me.”

“You don’t strike me as much of a bottom, Aya.”

That got a small smile. “No.”

“Thus....” Yoji gestured to his on-the-floorness.

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“That’s what I want this time.”

Yoji sighed inwardly. Everything, every last fucking little detail, was always going to be a battle with this one. “Aya, no way am I going to let you turn this into some kind of punishment.”

Aya sat next to Yoji. “I hadn’t thought of that. That’s good.”

Yoji sat up. He felt like he was on the third leg of a marathon. “OK, then -- why?”

“Isn’t it enough that you get what you want?”

“No.”

“All this communication is spoiling you. If I explain this, will you shut up and fuck me?”

Yoji nodded mutely. He was so hard he could barely think, yet he knew better than to relax his guard.

“I want to try giving up the control, to see if that will...give me some peace.”

“Why haven’t you tried this before, then?”

“I told you.”

What? When? Yoji struggled with the limited facts at hand. He finally decided Aya must mean the Masaki thing. “That’s flattering, I think. What else?

“I trust you.”

Better. Yoji just wished he didn’t still feel as if he were sailing into the part of the map that said “Here be monsters.” Because Aya was struggling with something; it was obvious from the look in his eyes and the twist of his mouth.

“Aya, do you actually want to do this?

“Yes,” Aya finally said. Quietly, seriously, like he was accepting a death sentence.

Yoji was torn. He felt things for Aya -- important things he was willing to acknowledge, if not examine closely. He didn’t want to add to Aya’s state of overwhelming wretchedness. On the other hand, enough was enough. This approach/avoidance behavior was beginning to really fuck with him. There was no way Yoji was going to walk away without some kind of sex taking place. But....

This wasn’t how he wanted it to happen.

“Aya, you say ‘yes, yes,’ but there’s ‘no, no’ in your eyes.”

Aya stared at him in that way he had of turning to face a person, making eye contact, then cocking his head slowly and staring as if he were trying to puzzle out what kind of big, ugly bug he’d discovered. Finally, he nodded to himself. “You think I know what I’m doing and just choose not to let you in on it.”

Yoji sensed trouble but nodded anyway.

Shaking his head vigorously, Aya said, “I have no idea what I’m doing. Less than none. My uncertainty about what I’m doing is so intense that it sometimes rips time and space.”

“Oh, come on -- you know if you want sex or not.”

“No, I don’t. Not always. That’s what I’m saying. Even with something that basic, I obsess and ponder and fret and worry insanely until I have no idea what I really think or feel.”

It was Yoji’s turn to stare.

Aya’s face lit up with triumph. “Now you get it.”

“I’m dumbstruck. I mean, you certainly seem to know what you’re doing on a mission. Or in the flower shop, even.”

Aya had warmed to his topic and spoke animatedly. “That’s different. I understand killing. Killing makes sense to me. Human emotions and relations -- much less clear.” He paused, thinking. “And at the flower shop, I just fake it. It’s not like it matters, anyway.”

“That’s what Ken says, too. The flower shop is....”

“Don’t lecture me about the God-damned flower shop, Yoji. Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Yoji still wasn’t entirely happy with the situation, but he was also keenly aware that he might not get another chance. “Yeah. But you’re going to like it.”

Aya smiled and got into his lap again. He started sucking on Yoji’s earlobe, then whispered, “I’m willing to like it.”

“You promise?”

“If you’re as good as you say you are.”

“I’m better,” Yoji murmured, kissing him fiercely.

“Show me.”

“I’m trying.” Yoji grabbed the hair at the back of Aya’s head with one hand and held his jaw in place with the other, redoubling his kissing efforts. He just needed Aya to lose track for a few minutes.... If he retained access to his brain, he’d probably argue the whole time. Or worse.

Aya seemed to like the rough treatment, so Yoji stuck with what worked, throwing him to the floor and climbing on top of him.

“Aya,” he breathed.

Aya made a noise deep in his throat.

“Aya,” Yoji whispered again, this time kissing the skin just beneath Aya’s jaw, moving his lips over his Adam’s apple, down to the hollow along his collarbone.

“Please let me do this,” Yoji whispered, hands moving from Aya’s shoulders to his chest and down his stomach, then touching the bare skin under his shirt. “And don’t hate me for it.” One hand slid around to the small of Aya’s back, while the other -- slowly, unsteadily -- reached for his dick. “You’re hard.”

Aya moaned quietly.

“You want me, don’t you. Say it. Just this one time, tell me you want me.”

“Yes,” he said, gritting the word out, barely loud enough to hear.

Yoji groaned. “What do you like?”

Aya shook his head impatiently. “You’re supposed to be topping -- figure it out.”

Yoji growled and thrust his hips against Aya’s, holding him down so he couldn’t move -- of course, Aya was actually much stronger and outweighed him by at least ten pounds, so maintaining the illusion was obviously at his discretion. It seemed to excite him, though.

“You want me to take you.” He bit Aya’s neck, gently at first, then violently. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Aya?” He ground his erection into Aya’s, making them both gasp. “You don’t want me to give you any choice.”

He sucked hard on Aya’s throat, then shifted to the side and tugged Aya’s shirt off. Aya closed his eyes as Yoji ran his hands over his bare flesh, tossed his head back when Yoji pressed slightly on the fresh scar on his shoulder. Yoji didn’t quite like the expression on his face, but there was no going back now.

“Bite me again,” Aya said, his voice like gravel.

Hands digging into Aya’s arms, Yoji bit forcefully at the tender skin just beneath Aya’s ear, but the more he hurt Aya, the more he responded. “Now tell me,” Yoji hissed. “Tell me what else you want, Aya. Tell me what else you need.”

“Just fuck me,” Aya rasped. “Hard. Make me scream.”

Yoji could barely breathe. “God, yes,” he muttered, mainly to himself. He rolled off and furiously yanked down Aya’s pants. Aya’s boots were already off -- how the hell did he do that shit? Yoji quickly stripped off his own clothes, staring all the while at Aya’s cock, which was rock-hard.

He knelt over Aya’s chest, his erection brushing Aya’s lips.

“Suck it,” he said gruffly.

Aya just stared at him for several seconds, and he was briefly afraid he’d made the worst mistake of his life. But then the redhead opened his mouth and traced his tongue over the head of Yoji’s cock, and it was all he could do to keep from coming right there. Aya licked his lips, then slid his mouth up and down the shaft, brushing it occasionally with his teeth. Yoji groaned loudly, which Aya took as a cue to swallow him back and suck as hard as he could.

Yoji grunted and pulled away sharply. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Can’t take…any more of that.”

Aya smiled. It had a cruel edge.

Yoji flipped him over and started kissing his shoulders, working his way down his back. He ran his tongue down Aya’s shoulder blades, over his ribcage, and down past the swell of his ass, occasionally gnawing at the snow-white skin.

Finally, he swirled his tongue around the tightly clenched muscle of Aya’s asshole, holding his hips firmly in place. He licked and sucked and lightly dragged his teeth across the flesh until it opened to his tongue, which he thrust inside until Aya started pushing back against him. He spit on his fingers and slid them inside, feeling around for the sweet spot, relishing how Aya cried out each time he stroked it -- God, it felt good to have some control.

“Damn it, Yoji, fuck me!”

Yoji cursed as he moved into position, applied more saliva to ease the way a little, at least, and pushed himself inside. He watched, rapt, as Aya panted, pulling at his own hair in an apparent effort to master the sensations.

“How does it feel, Aya? I’ll tell you how you feel to me....” he paused, gasping as the muscles around him tightened. “Hotter than hell.”

Aya groaned; Yoji wondered if he was even making sense of what he was saying. “Tell me, Aya,” Yoji ground out urgently. He’d quickly built up a pounding rhythm that was driving him insane. He reached a hand under Aya’s hips and stroked him hard and fast.

Aya cried out as he came in Yoji’s hand.

“Oh, fuck, yes!” Yoji screamed, briefly incapacitated by the force of his own orgasm . He collapsed on top of Aya and lay there until his breathing and heart rate had slowed down and he could see again. His first conscious thought was “damn the torpedoes, I’m in love.”

Yoji had wanted to lie next to Aya and hold him, even though the corrugated metal floor of the delivery truck was not exactly conducive to full-on afterglow. Apparently anticipating this move, Aya had easily countered and maneuvered himself into the dominant position. They were sitting up, Aya holding him from behind, arms around Yoji’s waist and face pressed against his back. Which wasn’t bad at all. They remained naked, too -- better still. Aya hadn’t said anything for a long time, but he hadn’t moved, either, which spoke volumes. Probably.

Yoji was wandering between immoderate exultation and abject worry, resting occasionally in the valley of quiet satisfaction. He was aware that this half-way point between fulfillment and longing might be as good as it got with Aya. It would be unwise to say anything and break the spell.

But Yoji needed to know. Had it been good for him? Well, he’d come, so it was at least good, because it’s always good to come -- even for Aya, Yoji assumed. But Yoji wanted it to have been a fucking revelation. As it were.

It would definitely be a bad idea to ask, though. He would bask in this half-light of relative contentment and keep his mouth shut for once.

“Was it OK?” Yoji asked. Damn it!

Aya was silent for a long time. “It was...can we just not talk about it?”

“Oh.” Yoji felt ill.

Aya sighed, rubbed his cheek against Yoji’s shoulder. “Don’t. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant -- Yoji, I just let someone fuck me.” He took a deep breath. “I just let you fuck me.”

Yoji was just starting to wonder if that wasn’t supposed to sound as bad as it did, either, when Aya spoke again. “It was...a big deal. To me,” he added quietly.

“To me, too. Which is why I want to talk about it.”

“OK. Just...later.” Aya sounded a bit panicky.

“I’m giving you 24 hours. Because ‘later’ encompasses an uncomfortably vast timeframe, and I don’t trust you.”

Aya just nodded, apparently realizing this was the best deal he was going to get. Yoji felt the motion against his shoulder.

“You do need to answer one yes-no question for me, though. Say either yes or no, whichever word comes to you first, before you start thinking about it. Did you get what you wanted out of it?”

Silence. “Aya, the parameters were clear. And they were simple. Yes or no?” More silence. Yoji sighed. Because if Aya didn’t know what he wanted, he wouldn’t necessarily know if he’d gotten it or not; and if he’d gotten what he wanted but didn’t realize it -- or if it really hadn’t been what he wanted at all -- Yoji would pay. He was already paying -- that last thought had given him a throbbing headache. Yoji bit his lip, forced his body to relax. He hadn’t lost anything yet -- after all, Aya was still holding him, still naked. Two out of three ain’t bad.

“Never mind,” he said, turning his head to kiss Aya. Who turned his head away. What the hell? “Now what?”

“I don’t like to kiss.”

“The hell you don’t. You liked it just fine a little while ago.”

Aya stood up abruptly, grabbed his clothes and was half-dressed by the time Yoji realized what was going on. He looked up into those impossibly colored eyes, searching for guidance. Searching for reassurance, too, although he knew he wasn’t likely to find any. But this was starting to hurt. A lot.

Aya paused in his efforts to untangle his shirt -- his pants were already on -- and slowly kneeled down next to Yoji. “You know those optical illusions where you see one thing, then if you look at it long enough, you see something else? You know, it’s a woman’s face, it’s a woman’s face -- oh, it’s a table?”

Yoji nodded slowly, stupefied.

“Well, a lot of things are like that." Aya ran his knuckles gently across Yoji’s cheek, then stood up, shaking the shirt out and putting it on as he slipped through the curtains to the front of the truck. Moments later, the engine rumbled and they were pulling out of the lot and onto the highway.

Yoji staggered back into the kitchen of the Koneko a little after 7. Physically, he was a couple of steps behind Aya; metaphysically, the distance was greater. He was confused. Befuddled, even. Worried. Irritated. Deeply, truly tired.

After Aya’d forsaken him for the second time in one day, Yoji had just stayed in the back of the truck, feeling sorry for himself. He’d gotten dressed and spent some time trying to unravel Aya’s koan -- which was, of course, redundant. After they’d dropped off the truck, though, he hadn’t had much choice about sitting next to Aya -- although he had briefly wondered if bungee cords would hold him onto the roof of the Porsche. At least then he’d have been able to smoke.

He’d expected an icy silence, but his baffling romantic adversary hadn’t actually seemed distant or unfriendly. Yoji couldn’t say how he’d decided that, since Aya had not disappointed re: the silence. It hadn’t actually mattered that much; Yoji was too exhausted -- physically and metaphysically -- to wonder about it any more. For the moment.

Ken and Omi were already up, having breakfast at the kitchen table. Yoji closed his eyes, inhaling the uniquely comforting aroma of coffee, nature’s perfect food.

“Any information to report?” asked Omi, his smile warm and welcoming. He was a bizarrely amiable little destroyer of life.

Yoji opened his mouth to say nobody had shown up, but Aya spoke first.

“No. I heard the targets arrive at about four, but we missed them because we were fucking in the back of the truck. Hey, are those donuts?”

Omi spit his coffee across the room. Yoji had never seen an actual spit-take -- it was just as funny as it was supposed to be.

Ken picked up the piece of apple fritter he’d just dropped and said, “Eclairs, too. Got them on my way back from the gym.”

Aya nodded appreciatively, grabbed one and shoved most of it into his mouth. He turned to look at Omi, who was still openly gaping, then at Yoji. “What?”

Yoji shook his head, attempting to arrange his face into a vague smile. “Oh, nothing. Time for me to go to bed, I think.” He headed up the stairs. Snagging another donut, Aya followed. Once they’d safely negotiated the stairs, Yoji turned and grabbed Aya’s arm. “Sleep with me. No talking, no kissing. Just sleep with me.”

Aya raised an eyebrow, stuffed the remaining half of the second donut into his mouth, and nodded.

Yoji tried to restrain the volume of his sigh of relief. Gallantly, he opened his bedroom door and gestured for Aya to walk in first. Aya looked as if he thought it might be an elaborate trap. Yoji sighed again, much less quietly. He also let the door slam a little behind him.

Aya took a moment to wipe the crumbs from his chin and chest and then lay down on Yoji’s bed, fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling.

Yoji shook his head. This relationship was like some kind of aphasiac Dada experiment. “You know, I’m willing to accept that most of your social malfunctioning is due to cluelessness rather than actual malice. But when I’m about to touch you, could you at least pretend you don’t feel like we’re re-enacting the dental torture scene from ‘Marathon Man?”

Aya scooted over to leave more room.

Yoji made a point of sighing as loudly as possible. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it toward the corner, then slowly peeled off his jeans. He wasn’t making a show of it; he was just worn-out and didn’t want to fall on his ass in front of Aya while trying to extract himself from his own clothing. He tossed the pants in the general direction of the shirt and turned toward the bed.

Aya had been watching; was still watching. His breathing was ragged and his pupils were dilated. There was also a sizeable bulge in his pants.

Yoji figured he’d probably get used to Aya eventually, if they lived that long. He lay down and turned to face him. Aya’s gaze, which had been moving lustfully over his abs and chest, drifted up to meet Yoji’s eyes. That one feverish look hardened Yoji’s dick and erased all resentful thoughts from his mind. He reached over -- slowly, deliberately -- to run his thumb across Aya’s lip. Aya met it with the tip of his tongue.

Yoji moved closer and slowly unbuttoned Aya’s shirt, then shifted to get a better angle for the pants. He undid the button and zipper with one hand while firmly cupping Aya’s erection with the other. Aya’s hips bucked and he moaned softly. Yoji slid down to pull the fabric over Aya’s hips and down his legs. Then, slowly, so he could get out of the way in case Aya freaked out, Yoji crawled back up the bed and settled against his beloved. Aya felt strong and sleek and dangerous, practically vibrating with restrained power and hunger.

Aya leaned over him, resting on his elbows, which were braced on either side of Yoji’s ribs. One arm slid around Yoji’s waist and pressed up, forcing him to arch his back, tilting his hips against Aya’s at an angle that felt very good, indeed. Aya’s other hand slid up, stopping briefly to stroke Yoji’s shoulder before moving to hold the back of his neck and forcing Yoji’s head back.

The position made Yoji feel almost uncomfortably submissive -- he hadn’t expected Aya to make him so vulnerable so quickly. He didn’t fight it, though. He’d given in weeks ago, that night Aya had driven him home after the mission. Fighting it now would just be stubborn, and God knew they didn’t need any more of that.

Still, Yoji -- who had been naked in a surprising variety of situations -- had never realized it was possible to feel this naked.

He looked directly into Aya’s eyes. He’d been avoiding it because he was afraid of what he’d see -- or, to be specific, what he wouldn’t see. It wasn’t quite like that, though. Yoji couldn’t interpret most of the storm he was looking into, but he had more than enough experience to recognize lust when he saw it. Lust, and a fierce, overwhelming need.

Hell, yes.

“Aya, I know I said no kissing, but...”

Aya leaned down and kissed him with abandon. It went straight to Yoji’s crotch and forced small, helpless whimpers from his throat. That’s it, baby, Yoji thought. I knew this was in there somewhere.

Yoji turned his concentration to breaking the paralysis Aya’s onslaught had induced. He ran both hands down Aya’s back and over his ass, feeling the firm, dense muscle. He drew his legs up over Aya’s upper back, spreading himself beneath Aya’s hips wantonly. Making an unmistakable invitation.

Aya growled and shifted up onto his knees, sliding a hand over Yoji’s ass and fingering his opening, swirling his middle finger just inside, then adding a second, pushing them in up to the second knuckle. Aya kneaded lightly, dipping in just the tip of his thumb once Yoji had opened up a bit. The way he moved those fingers was driving Yoji mad.

“Do you want my cock?” Aya whispered it into Yoji’s ear. “I want to....” his breath caught and he groaned loudly as Yoji writhed against him. “Lube. Do you....”

Yoji felt for the hand cream on the nightstand. He had tubes stashed all over the house -- floristry kept his hands chapped if he wasn’t vigilant. He flipped the top open and put the tube in Aya’s hand.

“Get on your knees in front of me,” Aya hissed urgently. It took Yoji a few moments to interpret the command -- it helped when Aya pulled his fingers out of his ass -- and then a few more to disentangle himself and comply.

Aya was kneeling, fisting his own erection. He pulled Yoji back against him and guided him down onto his cock. Yoji took in the head and had to stop for a few deep breaths before sliding down the length. Aya leaned back, supporting himself on one arm, and grabbed Yoji’s cock, jerking him with a firm grip, like he meant business. Yoji leaned back against Aya, who seemed to have no trouble keeping his balance and holding Yoji up. Yoji was impressed. He wondered what his partner would be able to do when he wasn’t wounded.

Then Aya started thrusting, and Yoji didn’t have another coherent thought until after he came. That thought was “snooze or die.” He pulled a surprisingly tractable Aya to him and fell asleep using the redhead’s shoulder as a pillow.

Yoji was having trouble waking up, a sure sign he’d slept too long -- or not long enough. Of course, it could mean he was catching a cold; or maybe the weather wasn’t agreeing with him.... He definitely felt too warm. Maybe...it might be somehow related to the unfamiliar presence of someone bigger and stronger than him, lying against his back and holding him tight. Throwing off heat like a radiator, too.

Oh, that was Aya...which meant, by process of deduction, that the enormous hard-on wedged against his ass belonged to....

Yoji’s eyes popped open. Careful not to break the embrace, Yoji rolled over and put his arms around Aya’s waist, slid a hand down to squeeze Aya’s ass. Still asleep, Aya thrust against Yoji, grinding into him. Yoji’s cock leaped fully to life. He pulled Aya close and started kissing the other man’s neck, jaw, ear...Aya was waking up but still accommodating.

“Oh, God, Aya, you’re....” Yoji licked his ear. “So....” He signed against Aya’s mouth and lightly bit his lower lip. “Beautiful.”

“Mmmm,” Aya murmured sleepily. “Are you going to compare me to a summer’s day? Am I more lovely and more temperate? Ohhh...do that again....”

“You certainly are temperate,” Yoji said, giving Aya’s balls another light squeeze. “And lovely. Yes. More....”

Aya moaned quietly, lying back and spreading his legs to give Yoji easier access. He made a pleased little humming sound. “How about more fair? Am I more fair?”

“More everything.”

Aya threw back his head and moaned as Yoji started pumping him in earnest.

“Don’t know...aah...what scares me more....” Aya choked off a groan. “That you seem to mean it...oh, fuck yes, just like that...or that you might not.”

“Oh, I mean it.” Yoji picked up the rhythm Aya needed and brought him close to completion. “It’s just the way it is. Might as well be afraid of the dark at night or the waves on the ocean....”

“Lots of people are afraid of those things, Yoji.... Oh, God -- if you keep doing that, I’m going to come....”

“That’s the point.”

Aya closed his eyes and let himself go. His deep, quiet groan thrilled Yoji; in fact, Yoji was so happy he wanted to giggle. He stifled it, though, because he wanted to come more, and to do that, he had to avoid provoking Aya to murder. Aya was unarmed, but that would only slow him down so much.

“So, you’re a force of nature?” Aya asked, still panting a little. “Is that what you tell the ladies?”

Yoji frowned -- this sounded like an area of conversation to be avoided. “How about if you reciprocate with the hand-job action before going into a full-blown critique of my sweet nothings?”

“As it were,” Aya snorted. But he complied, and ah, that was so much better. Aya had such good hands, and, as he’d proven so many times on their missions, he excelled at figuring out what worked. Quickly. Yoji allowed himself the luxury of calling out Aya’s name as he came, to make up for all the times he’d had to bite it back.

Catching his breath, Yoji gasped, “Fuck, you’re good at that.”

Aya looked ever-so-slightly perplexed. “Well, it isn’t difficult to figure it out -- I have one too; I know how they work.”

Was it a joke? Wasn’t it a joke? Yoji had no idea, so it was safer not to laugh.

“Um...right. Well, a lot of people who presumably deal with their own dicks all the time don’t seem to know what to do with someone else’s. Surely you’ve noticed this.”

Aya grunted his assent. “Fine. I’ll make sure Kritiker adds it to my profile: Performs adequately on hand-job maneuvers.”

“OK, that was definitely a joke. Maybe you could carry a little flag that says ‘humor’ on it, and you could wave it when you’re saying something funny.”

Aya frowned slightly. Yoji was going to let it go, but the frown deepened.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leave me alone. I’m experiencing angst and ennui.”

“And ennui, you say.”

“Yes, ennui. It adds texture.”

“Texture.”

“I like to think of ennui as the pretzels in the Chex Party Mix of my despair.”

Yoji smiled. “I really, really like you.”

Aya rolled his eyes. “Please don’t start singing again.”

“Well, if you can think of something else I could be doing with my mouth...maybe something we’d both enjoy more....”

“We need to.... Do women actually like those kinds of lines?”

“Umm.... It wasn’t a line, per se. But, well...yeah.”

Aya thought about it and shook his head. “You’re obviously procuring some fairly indiscriminate women. No wonder you go through them like water.”

Nope, still not a line of conversation likely to go anywhere Yoji wanted to be. “Aya, forget about the women. The women don’t matter.”

Aya cocked an eyebrow. “Not to you, maybe.”

“There aren’t as ridiculously many women as I may have led you to believe. That whole cartoon-character playboy thing is kind of a joke for me. It pisses everybody off, so I keep doing it.”

“How many women have you slept with?”

Why did this keep happening? Yoji was known for his glib charm, his ability to talk to anyone about anything. But every time he tried to talk to Aya, the whole thing went completely to hell in 15 minutes or less, guaranteed or it’s free. “Aya, I have a lot of perfectly good reasons for refusing to answer that question. So we’re going to stop talking about it.”

“We weren’t talking about it. We were getting up and getting ready for the mission tonight.”

“What mission tonight?

“We have to go back and do the surveillance again.” Aya spoke slowly and articulated carefully, as if he’d decided Yoji were mentally deficient.

Oh. When the hell had Aya had time to plan that out? Driving home this morning, probably, while Yoji was busy being hurt and confused. Yoji was beginning to see the advantages of being able to pretend you didn’t really have feelings. He’d have to try it some time.

“Ah. And you already set this up?”

Aya stared at him, clearly trying to figure out if Yoji really were a complete dolt or if he might have some other agenda. At least he hadn’t just assumed. “When we dropped off the truck this morning, I told the guy we’d need it again tonight. You were there.”

Oh. “Oh. I was...busy.”

“I hadn’t realized the pouting took up so much brain capacity. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

Well, that was just uncalled for. “I see,” Yoji said, his tone frosty. “When do you want to leave, then?”

Aya looked confused. And, perhaps, a little hurt. “In an hour. We need to get something to eat, and” -- he smiled hesitantly -- “take a shower. Not in that order.”

Yoji couldn’t help wanting to twist the screw. He nodded in a businesslike manner. “Fine. You go first. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour.”

Aya’s smile wavered, then disappeared. He nodded. His jaw jutted forward a bit, and his mouth was held in a tight line -- definitely hurt. Yoji felt better and worse at the same time -- the bit of revenge was sweet like rotten fruit. Clearly feeling awkward, Aya got dressed briskly and left quickly, without saying another word. Yoji closed his eyes and wondered, for the millionth time in recent history, what the hell he was doing. Other than trying to fit a porcupine into a cookie jar.

Aya was waiting for Yoji in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything when Yoji got there, just turned on his heel and went into the garage. Yoji groaned. This was partially his fault, but that didn’t make him feel any less sorry for himself.

No conversation was forthcoming when he got to the car, either. They drove in silence, picked up the truck in silence, drove back to the outskirts of nowhere in silence, sat in the parking lot in silence. Yoji was irritated; in fact, he caught himself reaching up to play with his hair. As a kid he’d twirled the soft curls around his index finger, a nervous habit for which he’d gotten no end of shit. The urge only returned now in dire situations where he had no cigarettes.

Yoji had once been injected with a drug -- in a decidedly non-recreational capacity -- that had made him feel as if insects were crawling under his skin. If he were forced to choose between that and the current situation, he wasn’t sure which one he’d pick. Yoji’s instinct was to talk. It was what he did. Yoji was not one of the silent, brooding loners he often fell for. Yoji was affectionate, he hated to be alone, and he talked. It almost defined him. He usually tried to censor the chatter a little to avoid annoying Aya; tonight, however, he was trying to avoid venting his anger in a way that would chase Aya away for good. Part of him was actually desperate to hurt Aya again, but contrary to the opinion of certain teammates, Yoji had enough discipline to keep from working against his own interests. Mostly. Of course, chasing Aya away was arguably in his best interest....

But, oh God, Aya was good in bed. He had a body to make the angels weep, and he fucked like...Yoji became aware of a painful tightness in his chest. Elsewhere, too.

He turned to stare at Aya’s profile in the moonlight, tried to block the flashback of last night, when Aya had sat in his lap and sighed so sweetly against his neck.

Aya was unhappy. He sat stiffly -- of course, he might just have a sword down the back of his coat -- and stared carefully straight ahead, the set of his mouth and stain around his eyes telling Yoji that the redhead was not oblivious or uncaring, and that he wasn’t focused entirely on the mission.

Yoji suddenly didn’t want to hurt him anymore.

He leaned over and gently kissed the corner of Aya’s mouth, provoking a startled and uncertain expression. Hungry. He kept staring straight ahead for several seconds, obviously afraid. Yoji felt that pain in his chest again. Slowly, grudgingly, Aya turned to look at him. “Yoji...”

Yoji put a finger to Aya’s lips. “Shut up. I need to tell you something. Don’t kill me, but...I love you.”

Aya’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He turned away from Yoji again, closing his eyes tight as if helpless before the force of the sudden headache Yoji’s words had triggered. “No,” he whispered. Then, louder, more forcefully: “No, you don’t.”

“Look, Aya, it’s OK. I’m not asking you for anything -- I just wanted you to know.”

Aya whirled around. “It is not OK,” he hissed.

Wow. Yoji’s disappointment with the distinct lack of enthusiasm was pretty much eclipsed by the realization that here, right next to him, in an enclosed space, Aya -- who was presumably armed and certainly very dangerous -- was completely losing his shit. Yoji knew he wasn’t qualified to deal with this, but it wasn’t like he had time to call in one of Kritiker’s bomb teams to diffuse it for him, either.

He decided to pull the red wire and see what happened. “Aya, calm the fuck down. I don’t expect you to love me back. I don’t expect anything. I just....”

“No,” Aya roared. It seemed to startle him, too, and he visibly grappled for composure. “I’m going to take a look at the docking bay. Stay here.” Resistance would be futile; he was already halfway out the door.

“What if something happens while you’re over there?” Yoji asked.

“I’ll take care of it. Stay in the truck.” Aya closed the door quietly. Yoji watched, but he never saw the man cross the lot or enter the building.

Yoji stretched a little and sighed. That just hadn’t gone well at all. He hadn’t expected a marriage proposal or anything, but Aya’s reaction seemed a trifle overblown. The good news was that the semi-erection he’d had all evening seemed to have finally gone away.

Fucking hell -- Aya was absolutely demented. If only he weren’t so.... Yoji closed his eyes and saw Aya covered in sweat and completely open to him. Ah -- welcome back, erection.

Yoji forced himself to think about something else. Going off alone had been incredibly stupid -- Aya must have been really shaken. Yoji needed to come up with a plan. They had no idea if anyone would be using the loading dock or not, or how many people might be showing up or how well-trained they’d be. Aya was in there with no backup and possibly no weapon, and they had no way of communicating if anything went wrong. Yoji corrected his original assessment -- Aya was being fucking stupid.

Yoji was running his fingers over his watch, fingers itching to pull out the wire and save Aya from the threat he’d just conjured up. He was also smiling. Aya was so passionate. Bat-shit crazy, but hot. Beyond hot. Molten. His body was a religious experience. The way Aya had fucked him....

Hold on, that was definitely a car. No, it was three...four...a bunch of cars. Pulling into the lot and heading directly into the loading dock. The lights in the bay came on. It was actually pretty dim in there, but to Yoji it looked bright as day. Fuck.

Yoji continued to wait in the truck like a good dog. Aya knows what he’s doing, Aya knows what he’s doing, Aya knows what he’s doing.... Yoji repeated it under his breath like a mantra. He was pretty sure it was OK; Aya would certainly have heard the cars too, and nobody could play disappearing ninja like Aya.

Then the trucks started arriving. One big, military-looking one. A second big, military-looking one. A large van. People were crawling all over the loading bay.

Fucking hell. If that clueless psycho had known what he was doing, he never would have left the truck in the first place.

“Maybe I should just stay in the truck anyway,” Yoji thought. He was pretty sure he was safe here, parked in the middle of about 30 identical vehicles at least half a city block from the loading zone. Yoji wasn’t even close enough to see any details. Oh, yeah; he should break out the binocular thingy....

Right -- as the professionals liked to say, this sucked ass. And not in a good way.

There were at least fifty people in there, and they were not milling around haphazardly. They were transferring weapons -- alarming weapons -- from one truck to another. They were having serious discussions. They were patrolling the loading bay in a purposeful manner.

“I’ll handle it. Just stay in the truck.” Yoji could hear Aya’s derogatory tone in his head as clearly as if his teammate were still sitting right next to him. It was especially galling because, even as he started readying himself to disobey that order, he was 98% sure it was the wrong thing to do. Not only had Aya proven many times that he more than knew how to take care of himself, but one man would be more difficult to spot than two. Especially when that one man was already in place, and the second would have to creep past a fucking legion of lawbreakers to get in. What was the technical term -- a murder of mercenaries? A bolus of bad guys? Yoji shook his head to clear it of excess whimsy.

The thing was, if by some fluke they did find Aya, Yoji needed to be close enough to help. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try. Yoji sighed.

The trick, of course, would be getting himself over there and in position. The set-up wasn’t ideal, but Yoji’s skulking skills were pretty damned good. Maybe not quite in Aya’s league, but still first-rate.

Yoji left the truck and crept across the parking lot. He’d seen a couple of men fan out to search the back of the building, but he should be able to take them out easily enough if he had to. It would be better to avoid them, though, since someone would notice if they didn’t return.

He found an employee’s entrance that looked like it didn’t lead directly into the bay and had an absurdly simple lock to boot. Yoji was inside in just a few moments, undetected. He was standing in a small office area, completely screened from the action. He slipped into the room in front of him and found himself in a small, dark office with an enormous window looking out over the loading dock. Not bad, Yoji thought, considering he’d had no advance information. He gave himself several minutes to catalogue the contents and structure of the bay.

And now it was time for a little game he enjoyed playing now and again to amuse himself. He called it “What Would Aya Do?” Pretending to be Aya, Yoji stood up straighter, jutted out his jaw, and slipped into the shadows near the window so he wouldn’t be betrayed by the light reflecting off his hair. One with the darkness, Aya would calmly assess each and every threat, Yoji decided, and then do something theatrical and dangerous. Yoji looked again at the scene before him and searched for the bold, crazy way to approach the situation.

And there it was, a wide beam running across the bay about two floors up, maybe a third of the way across the floor. It was only accessible by about 40 feet of I-beam that a tall man could just about grab if he first climbed a huge stack of crates at the very back of the bay. The area was dark and shadowy and reasonably far away from what he wanted to stay far away from. And the main beam was wide enough to more or less obscure a crouching figure if anyone on the ground were to look up.

Yoji allowed himself a tight, predatory smile as he melted out of the office and along the back wall of the bay. Playing Aya was fun. Did Aya have this much fun being Aya? Sure didn’t look like it.

Quickly and quietly scaling the mountain of boxes, Yoji caught hold of the I-beam, but only by standing on his tip-toes. Which meant Aya would have had to jump for it. Yoji refused to acknowledge the slight surge of nausea engendered by that thought, or to look down and contemplate just how much of a fall it would be -- that would violate the rules of WWAD. Aya would simply do what needed to be done, smoothly and efficiently, the thought of cracking his skull open on the floor far beneath and dying as bad guys pointed and laughed never entering his head.

Yoji took a deep breath and pulled himself up as close to the beam as he could; then he swung his legs up and scrabbled on top, holding on for dear life. Not exactly the graceful flip he’d seen Aya execute under similar circumstances, but they couldn’t all be closet gymnasts.

Now for the hard part. Yoji carefully, oh so carefully, stood up and concentrated on balancing. He just needed to walk across to the main beam, and he’d be set. For the moment. It hadn’t looked like such a great distance, from down below. Aya, of course, would simply stride right out there. Yoji started walking, thinking that being Aya was actually a hell of a mental and physical workout.

He couldn’t stifle a distinctly un-Aya-like sigh of intense relief when he stepped off the I-beam. The main beam was about two feet across, which felt kind of cramped at that height, but it was positively spacious in comparison with Yoji’s previous accommodations. Now, where the hell was Aya?

Yoji heard the quietest of thumps behind him and turned to see Aya, crouching, having jumped down from somewhere above. While impressed, Yoji had to roll his eyes. He would never win at WWAD because Aya was a fucking maniac.

Leaning carefully against Yoji and whispering, barely audibly, into his ear, Aya hissed, “What the fuck are you doing here?” He looked extravagantly angry.

“I came to help you,” Yoji whispered back.

“I don’t need any help.”

“You will if they notice you.”

“Unless you make them, they aren’t going to notice me.”

Yoji looked up into the darkness from whence Aya had sprung and decided the man might have a point. “Well, when I saw the size of the force, I figured....”

“Oh, I know what you figured,” Aya cut him off. “Well, we can’t stay here. It’s below the line of lights -- they could see us from the right angle. You’re going to have to climb.”

Yoji felt that Aya was exaggerating the danger, but when playing WWAD, it was probably best to defer to the master. Yoji reluctantly followed him back out onto the I-beam. When they got close to the wall, though, Aya seemed to disappear. What the...? Yoji looked around, leaning against the wall for support.

Aya’s upside-down head appeared about a foot above him, looking as if it were just suspended in darkness. Yoji’s well-honed reflexes kept him from falling to his immediate death, but he was fairly sure the episode had shortened his life by several years.

“There’s a grating you can climb about six inches to your left. It’ll bring you to a catwalk about ten feet up,” whispered Aya’s eerie disembodied head. Then it disappeared.

Yoji shuddered, then looked around some more. Ah -- there was always a reasonable explanation. Aya had chosen to provide directions while hanging upside down by his knees off a catwalk about 30 feet in the air. Yoji nodded to himself. Yup; clearly he had a long way to go before he’d be able to play WWAD with real flair.

Yoji felt for the grating and found it, cursing its flimsiness and his own generous nature for having given a damn if anything happened to Aya in the first place. He climbed to the top of the insubstantial thing and looked for the catwalk. Where was it? Surely Aya didn’t mean that tiny strip of metal that looked like it was held up by erector-set parts?

“Come on,” Aya hissed.

Apparently he did. Yoji grabbed for it, none too pleased by the way it swayed, and pulled himself up, his hatred for Aya keeping him focused. He crouched on the catwalk, holding tightly to the slender support rails, and swore softly until his heart rate slowed. Aya was crouching next to him, looking nonchalant. Well, irritated and capable of unspeakable violence at any moment -- Aya’s version of nonchalant. And the bastard wasn’t even touching the railing, Yoji noticed. He fought an urge to stick out his tongue.

Aya leaned against him and whispered, “You should have stayed in the truck.”

“I’m beginning to think so myself. But it’s a little late for that, so let’s just move on,
OK?”

“It’s a good thing I came in. I got a lot of information I’d have missed if I’d stayed outside.”

“Oh, when you get emotional and deviate from the plan, it’s a stroke of genius, but when I do it, I should have stayed in the truck. Do you think I’m a complete fuck-up? Is that what you think?”

“That isn’t what I said, Yoji.”

“Well, you sure as hell implied it.”

“Yoji, stop bitching and let’s concentrate on getting out of here alive, OK?”

“Bitching? Well, excuse me for not being sufficiently steely and stoic. No wonder you got so pissed off back in the truck. I know what you’re thinking: Having a physical weakness for a loser like me is bad enough; it’s too much to bear if the loser actually cares about you, huh?”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking. You don’t know anything but what I tell you.”

“You don’t know how much you tell me.”

“Yoji, now is not the time for this. Remember all that perceived danger you ran in here to save me from? Still there. If we keep arguing like fishwives, they’re going to find us.”

“Yes, Aya, I realize that. The problem is that no time is the time for this.” Yoji raised his voice slightly. “Talk to me, Aya.”

Aya’s eyes widened. “Are you threatening me? Are you threatening to expose us if I won’t discuss our relationship with you? In the middle of a mission?”

Yoji smiled slowly. “So, Aya, how much don’t you want to talk about it?”

Aya looked flabbergasted -- which, Yoji decided, made all this idiocy worthwhile. “So what’s it gonna be, Aya? Yes or no?” Yoji was pretty sure he saw a glimmer of respect flicker deep in Aya’s eyes before he closed them and took a deep breath. “Yoji, I....” He trailed off and shrugged, that one-sided shrug reminding Yoji that Aya was still healing from a gunshot wound and shouldn’t really be doing this at all -- which is why they’d only been on a fucking surveillance mission in the first place.

“I want you. You know that,” Aya finally said. “I just...wish I didn’t.”

Well, Yoji had asked. Why did he keep asking?

“Any chance you could elaborate on that?” Yoji barely remembered to keep his voice down.

Aya shook his head slowly. “No. Not here.” Yoji recognized that stubborn look and realized he’d gotten as much as he was getting out of Aya for the moment.

Yoji sighed. “All right. But if you get yourself killed just to avoid talking about this, I’m going to be pissed off.”

Aya smiled grimly.

Yoji looked down and saw the beam he’d been standing on earlier. Aya had jumped down there? He really was out of his God-damned mind.

The ride home was much like the ride out -- quiet. Tense. Yoji was thoroughly demoralized. They walked into the Koneko at about three a.m., and Aya went straight to the basement to write the mission report. Yoji dragged himself upstairs, already feeling a little sore from all the unusual climbing activity. He went straight to his room, lay down on his bed, and settled in for some serious self-pity.

Except that he seemed to have under-evaluated his level of tiredness -- brooding was hard work. Made a person tired, especially on top of all the climbing. Almost immediately, he started drifting off into a troubled sleep.

From which he was woken an indeterminate amount of time later by a scream. He was able to ascertain almost immediately that it was his own; his heart was pounding and his throat burned from holding back bile. He’d had variations on this dream many times, but this was...too much.

He sat up, cradling his head in his arms, trying to calm himself down. He noticed the sound of the shower, then glanced at the clock on the nightstand -- it was a little after four. Must be Aya.

His head was throbbing, he realized. Maybe he could just go in there and get some ibuprofen. Maybe Aya would talk to him. Or, more likely, yell at and reject him. Well, whatever Aya might dish out was better than lying in his room, replaying those unspeakable images over and over until he drove himself mad. That settled, he flopped out of bed and set off for the bathroom.

Finding the door unlocked, Yoji just walked in. “I just need something for a headache,” he called, opening up the medicine cabinet.

“Don’t you have ibuprofen in your room?”

Of course he did. They all did; they went through cases of the stuff. As usual, Aya was resistant to all attempts at casual interaction. Yoji stared desperately at the shower curtain, willing Aya to come through for him.

“Well?” Aya’s voice was flat.

“Oh. Sorry. I got stuck.” Yoji ran his fingers through his hair. “I...had a bad dream. A very bad dream.” Might as well just throw himself upon the mercy of the court, if it had any.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

And damned if Aya hadn’t surprised him yet again. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise him any more that Aya kept surprising him. That’s what Aya did. There was a word for that, something about a nun playing a drum.... Oh, yeah -- Aya was a conundrum.

“Well, yes and no,” Yoji finally answered. “I’d rather just forget it, you know? But I don’t know if I can.”

“Sometimes it helps to talk.” Aya paused, and Yoji could picture the tight little half-smile which signaled that Aya was in on the joke. “Not that I’d know first-hand. But I seem to remember someone telling me that.”

Yoji smiled. “Someone brave and insightful, I bet. Also tall and good-looking.” Suddenly, a scene from his dream returned unbidden, wiping the smile from his face. “I don’t know if I can talk about it. Not yet. Besides, you probably don’t want to hear about it.” Hesitantly, he added, “You were...part of it.”

Aya turned off the water and got out of the shower, not bothering to towel off as he approached Yoji. He searched Yoji’s eyes, his expression as gentle and caring as Yoji had ever seen it. “Is that part of the reason you’re so upset? Because I was in it?”

Yoji nodded, unable to speak as he watched rivulets of water drip over Aya’s finely cut muscles.

“Then I should apologize,” Aya said softly. With no further preamble, he sank to his knees, yanked down Yoji’s sweatpants and, looking into his eyes, took Yoji’s soft, limp cock into his mouth and started alternately sucking and rolling it around on his tongue. It responded immediately, and Aya started moving his head up and down on it, perfect suction, perfect rhythm, finally swallowing it against the back of his throat. Yoji didn’t want to come immediately -- he wanted to enjoy the experience while it lasted, and there was also an issue of professional pride -- but he was tired and emotional and his brain was chanting “your dick is in Aya’s mouth in Aya’s mouth in Aya’s mouth Aya’s mouth Aya’s....”

It wasn’t a mind-blowing orgasm, even though, as he’d suspected, Aya did indeed give good head. It was, however, an extremely welcome release. Yoji slid down to the floor and put his arms around Aya, leaning forward to rest his head against a slippery shoulder. Aya pulled Yoji into a wet hug and whispered into his ear. “Can you tell me about it now?”

Yoji swallowed hard, and haltingly began speaking into Aya’s hair. It helped that he couldn’t see his face -- he wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to say it if he were looking into those eyes.

“I was walking down this long, dark hallway. I had this horrible sense of dread as I got closer to this door at the end of it, and I started hearing.... You were crying out. God, I didn’t want to open that door... I didn’t want to see.... But I had to. So, I finally walked into the room. And you were....” Yoji broke off. It was too horrible -- he couldn’t go on.

Aya stroked his hair and murmured sympathetically, holding him tightly. “It’s OK. Tell me.”

“You were....” Yoji broke off, shuddering, then forced himself to continue. “You were with Omi.”

There was a moment of silence while Aya waited for the rest of it. When Yoji showed no sign of continuing, Aya prompted, “I was with Omi and....”

“You were...you know. With Omi.”

Aya struggled to put it all together. Then Yoji felt him stiffen; his hand pulled away from Yoji’s hair. “I was...with Omi? You mean sex? You dreamed I was having sex with Omi?” His voice had shifted from quietly reassuring to quietly menacing.

Yoji missed quietly reassuring. And the hair-stroking had been really nice, too.

Aya moved away, watching Yoji with an expectant, hostile look.

“Yes,” Yoji said. He couldn’t keep from whining. “It was horrible!”

Aya stood up, muttering under his breath, the invective indistinct but still chilling. Aya brusquely dried himself off and pulled on his pants. Whirling around, he hissed, “You son of a bitch.”

Yoji slowly stood up, prepared to defend himself. Then he realized his pants were down around his knees and jerked them up -- hard to look like you might pose a credible threat when your pants are down around your knees and your freshly sucked dick is hanging out. How often he’d thought that....

“You God-damned whoring cretin! How dare you....”

“Look, Aya, it’s not like I wanted to dream about you having sex with Omi. I’m a victim here, too.”

Aya looked like he wanted to kill him, slowly and elaborately -- maybe drain his blood and make pudding. Yoji sighed and forced himself to relax his defensive posture. He held up his hands in supplication for good measure. “I’m sorry -- really. I shouldn’t have told you. I was so disturbed myself, I wasn’t thinking about how much it would upset you.”

Aya’s shoulders relaxed, and his expression slid into neutral. He closed his eyes, visibly gathering his limited reserves of charity, then he looked at Yoji and nodded. “OK. You were freaked out. I understand. Let’s just...never speak of this again, all right?” He shook his head, radiating distaste. “Me fucking Omi,” he muttered. “I can’t believe....”

“Actually, Omi was fucking you.”

The blood drained from Aya’s face. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in fury. He didn’t really move, but everything about him suddenly projected hostile intent. “I....” Aya choked out the word, then stopped. “I can’t say it. You...I should kill you.”

The only way to take a statement like that from Aya was seriously. Yoji started strategizing about how to escape. Aya stood between him and the door. They were both unarmed, which gave Aya the advantage. Yoji eyed the towel. He could use it to smash the mirror, but that would give Aya a weapon as well. Maybe he could use the towel to choke him, if he caught him off guard....

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Aya said. His voice was now deadly calm. “I trusted you.”

And just like that, the spell of fear was broken. “Oh, you did not,” Yoji snarled. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“What are you talking about?” Aya’s confusion appeared to have momentarily distracted him from his murderous intent, at least.

“Trust. I’m talking about trust,” Yoji said, warming to the unaccustomed pleasure of righteous indignation. “I told you I loved you and you acted like I’d ordered you to set yourself on fire. Fuck you! You don’t know a fucking thing about trust!”

Yoji took a couple of deep breaths and felt the rage desert him as quickly as it had arrived, leaving him with nothing but an amped-up adrenaline headache. Also, Aya was just standing there, staring at him, which couldn’t be good. Ah, well.... He’d given it a shot, and his immanent death would take care of the headache, at least....

“I don’t understand you,” Aya finally said. His voice was flat, and his face betrayed nothing.

“Well, right back at you, you crack-headed freak.”

Aya narrowed his eyes.

Ah, there was the anger. “Don’t make me kill you,” Yoji growled.

Aya smiled a small, dangerous-looking little smile, then took a step closer. He grabbed Yoji’s cock, which was already half-hard from the arguing, and gave it a little squeeze. “Are you going to shoot me with your gun?”

Yoji gurgled helplessly.

Aya’s smile broadened. “Well, you can try,” he said, turning and walking out of the room.

Onward
Vom Marlowe: Girl Yoji

Backward
Lev Olsen: I Would Like a Large Lobster

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