Everville (42 page)

"Hammefings in heaven?"

"No. I was thinking about you."

"Oh dear."

"Good thoughts," Seth said, settling himself down beside Buddenbaum.

"Really?"

"Really. I want to come with you, Owen."

"Come with me where?"

"Wherever you're going after this." "I'm not going anywhere," Owen said.

"You're going to live in Everville?"

"I'm not going to live anywhere."

"Is that just some way of saying you don't want me around," Seth said,

"'cause if it is, why don't you just come right out and say it and I'll go?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying at all," Owen replied.

"Then I don't understand."

Owen peered out of the window, chewing something over. "I know so little about you," he said. "And yet I feel-"

"What?"

"I've never really trusted anybody," Owen said. "That's the truth of it. I've wanted to many times, but I was always afraid of being disappointed." He looked at Seth. "I know I've cheated myself of a lot of feelings," he went on, his turmoil plain, "maybe even love. But it was what I chose, and it kept me from being hurt."

"You've never loved anybody?"

"Infatuations, yes. Daily. In Italy, hourly. All ridiculous, all of them. Humiliating and ridiculous. But love? No. I could never trust anyone enough to love them." He sighed heavily. "And now it's almost too late."

"Why?"

"Because sentimental love is a human affliction, and I won't be susceptible for very much longer. There. I've said it."

"You mean-you won't be human?" "That's what I mean."

"This is because of the avatars?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Explain it, will you?"

"Stand up," Owen said, coaxing Seth to his feet. "Now look out of the window." Seth did so. Owen stood behind him and laid his hands on Seth's shoulders. "Look down at the intersection."

There was no traffic below; the streets had been turned over to pedestrians until the parade was finished.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Seth wanted to know.

"You'll see," Owen said, his hands moving up to Seth's neck.

"Am I getting a massage?"

"Hush for a moment," Owen said. "Just-let the vision come.

Seth felt a tingling at the nape of his neck, which quickly spread up into the base of his skull. He let out a little sigh of pleasure. "That feels good."

"Keep your eyes on the road."

"I wish you'd just... " The remark fell away. He gasped, and grabbed hold of the windowsill. "Oh. My. God." The intersection was melting; the streets turning into laval rivers, decorated with flickering bands of scarlet and gold. they were moving-all four of them-towards the center of the crossroads, their brilliance increasing and their breadth diminishing, so that by the time they met they were narrowed to blazing ribbons, so bright Seth could only bear to look at the place for a heartbeat.

"What is this?" he breathed.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Oh God, yes. Did you make it?"

"A thing like this isn't made, Seth. It doesn't come out of the air, like a poem. All I can do is set it in motion."

"All right. Did you set it in motion?"

"Yes I did. A very long time ago."

:'You still haven't told me what it is.

'It's an invitation to a dance," Owen said softly, his mouth close to Seth's ear.

"What kind of dance?"

"The dance of being and becoming," he said. "Look at it, and forget your angels, hammering in the sky from heaven's side. This is where the miracles come."

"Where things meet."

"Precisely."

"Myjoumey ends at the crossroads. That's what you said."

"Remember that, later on," Owen said, his voice hardening. "Remember I never lied to you. I never told you I was here forever."

"No you didn't. I wish you had, but you didn't." "As long as we understand each other, we can have some fun today."

Seth turned his gaze from the street now. "I don't think I can look at it any longer," he said. "It makes me feel sick."

Owen ran his hand lightly over Seth's skull. "There," he said. "It's gone."

Seth looked back at the intersection. The vision had indeed disappeared. "What's going to happen?" he said to Owen. "You just stand in the middle of the crossroads and something comes to take you away?"

"Nothing so simple," Owen replied.

"What then?"

:'I'm not even sure myself."

'But you know what's going to happen to you, at the end of all this?"

"I know I'll be free from time. The past, the future and the dreaming moment between will be one immortal day - - - " His voice grew softer as he quoted the words, until by the end it was barely audible.

"What's the dreaming moment?" Seth said. Owen drew the youth closer to him, and laid a kiss on his lips. "You don't need me to work that one out," he said.

"But I do," Seth said, "I don't want you to go, Owen." "I have to," Buddenbaum said. "I'm afraid I have no choice in the matter."

"Yes you do. You could stay with me, for a while at least. Teach me some of what you know." He slid his hand down over Owen's chest. "And when you weren't teaching me"-his hand was at Owen's belt now, unbuckling it-"we could fuck."

"You have to understand how long I've waited," Owen said. "How much planning and plotting and manipulation I've had to do to get here. It hasn't been easy, believe me. I've almost given up countless times." Seth had unbuckled. Owen's belt, and was now unbuttoning his trousers. Owen kept talking as though indifferent to the boy's manipulations. "But I held on to the vision," he said.

Seth's fingers had found Owen's sex. Plainly his indifference had been play-acting.

"Go on!" Seth said, clasping the thing.

"Are you always in heat like this?" Owen said.

"I don't remember," Seth said. "Everything that happened before I met you"-he shrugged-"is a blur."

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not. It's true. I was waiting for you to come. I knew you would. Maybe I didn't know what you'd took like-"

"Listen to me."

"I'm listening."

"I'm not the love of your life."

"How do you know?"

"Because I can't be what you want me to be. I can't stay and watch over you."

Seth kept stroking. "So?" he said.

"So you'll have to find somebody else to love."

"Not if you take me with you," Seth said, "into the dance." He looked out of the window, down at the hard, gray street. "I could bear the heat of it, if I was with you."

"I don't think so."

"I could! Just give me a chance." He dropped down onto his haunches in front of Owen, and applied his tongue to the man's half-hard prick.

"Think what it'd be like," he said, between licks and kisses, "if we were together down there."

"You don't know what you're asking."

"So tell me. Teach me. I can be whatever you want. Believe me."

Owen stroked the boy's face. "I believe you," he said, idly toying with his prick. "I've told you before, you're remarkable." Seth smiled up at him. Then he took the tumescent prick into his mouth, and sucked. He was no great technician, but he had an appetite for the act that could turn him into one very quickly. Ow en ran his hands through the boy's hair, and let out a shuddering sigh. Usually, in the midst of being pleasured, he lost his grasp of any business but the one at hand, or mouth. Not so now. Perhaps it was the sense of finality that attended his every deed today (his last breakfast, his last noon, his last blow-job), perhaps it was simply the fact that the boy had a way with him, but the sensations running up his body from his groin made his thoughts almost crystalline' What was the use, he wondered, living an immortal day if it was a solitary condition? Rare and wise and lonely was no way to live out eternity. Perhaps if he'd had his druthers he might have chosen someone closer to his physical ideal with whom to share the experience, but then accommodations could probably be made in the flux of possibilities that would presently appear in the street outside. When the powers of evolution were unleashed, it would be easy to fix the boy's profile and narrow his hips. He looked down at Seth, running his thumb over the wet rendezvous of lip and shaft.

"You do learn fast," he said. The boy grinned around his lollipop.

"Keep going, keep going," Owen said, pushing his full length down Seth's throat. Seth gagged a little, but born cocksucker that he was, he didn't retreat from the challenge. "Good Lord," Owen said. "You're very persuasive, you know that?" He stroked Seth's face. The cheekbones were too low, the nose too lumpen. As for the hair, it was characterless: a mousy mop that he would need to re-create completely. Perhaps give him black ringlets to his shoulders, like something from Botticelli? Or maybe make him a sunbleached blond, with a fringe that flopped over his eyes. He didn't have to decide now. Later would do. Just before the abolition of nows and laters.

He felt the familiar tingle in his groin.

"That's enough," he said gently. "I don't want to finish just yet." If the boy heard him he didn't obey. Eyes closed, he was lost in an oral reverie, his drool so copious his motion had foamed it up at the root of Owen's cock.

My dick's Venus, Owen thought, risingfrom the sur The thought amused him, and while he was giggling at his own wit the boy's mouth brought him to crisis. "No!" he yelled, and forcibly pulled himself from between Seth's lips, pinching it behind the head so hard it hurt. For a moment he thought he'd lost the battle. He grunted and convulsed, closing his eyes against the bewitching sight of Seth kneeling in front of him, his chin shiny. He pinched harder still, and by and by the crisis retreated.

"That was very close," he gasped. "I thought you wanted me to finish." Seth opened his eyes again. Sometime during the proceedings Seth had unzipped, and slackened his cock. He was still working it.

"I haven't time to kick back and recover," Owen replied, "Lord knows, I shouldn't have let you start, but@'

"You kissed me first," Seth said, a little petulantly. "Mea culpa," Owen said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "I'll know better next time."

Seth looked despondent. "There's not going to be a next time, is there)" he said.

"Seth-';

"There's no need to lie to me," the boy replied, tucking his sex out of sight. "I'm not stupid."

"No, you're not," Owen said. "Get up, will you?" Seth got to his feet, wiping his lips and chin with the ball of his hand. "It's because you're not stupid I've told you all I have.

I'm trusting you with secrets I haven't shared with any living soul."

"Why?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Maybe because I need your company more than I thought I did."

"But for how long?"

"Don't push me, Seth. There are consequences here. I have to be certain I won't lose everything I fought for if I bring you along."

"But you might?"

"I said: Don't push me." Seth hung his head. "And don't do that, either. Look me in the eyes." Slowly Seth raised his head again. He was close to tears. "I can't be responsible for you, boy. Do you understand meT' Seth nodded. "I don't know what's going to happen out there myself. Not exactly. I only know that a lot of powerful minds have been wiped clean-gone, just like that-because they got to the dance, and found they didn't know the steps." He shrugged and sighed.

"I don't know what I feel for you, Seth, but I know I don't want to leave you a vegetable. I couldn't forgive myself that. On the other hand"-he took hold of the boy's chin, his thumb in the cleft-"something about our destinies seems to be intermingled." Seth opened his mouth to speak, but Owen hushed him with a look. "I don't want another word on this subject," he said.

"I wasn't going to say a word."

"Yes you were."

"Not about that."

"What then?"

"I was just going to say: I hear the band. Listen."

He was right. The distant sound of brass and drum was drifting in through the broken window.

"The parade's started," Seth said.

"At last," Owen replied, his gaze going past Seth to the crossroads below. "Oh my boy, now we shall see-"

"I suggest you stand still for a moment," Raul sWd.

Tesla stopped in her tracks, bringing Phoebe to a halt beside her.

Very still, There was movement in the mist ten or twelve yards ahead of them, Tesia saw. Four figures (one of them was the hammerer, she thought) moving across the slope. Phoebe had seen them too, and was holding her breath. If any of the quartet glanced in their direction, the game was up. With luck Tesla thought she might take out two of the four before they reached the spot where Phoebe and she were standing, but any one of the quartet looked fully capable of killing them both with a blow.

Not the prettiest things in creation, Raul remarked.

That was an understatement. Each displayed a particular foulness, which fact was emphasized by the way they hung upon each other's shoulders, like brothers in grotesquerie. One was surely the thinnest man alive, his black flesh pasted over his sharp bones like tissue paper, his gait mincing, his eyes fiery. At his side was a man as gross as the first was wasted, his robes, which were pale and mud- or bloodspattered, like his brother's, open to his navel. His breasts were pendulous, and covered in bruises, the source of which was a creature that resembled a cross between a lobster and a parrot-winged, clawed, and scarlet-that clung to his tits like a suckling child. The third member of this quartet was the hammerer. He was the most brutish of the four, with his iron shovel head and his bullish neck. But he whistled as he went, and the melody was sweetly lilting, like an Irish air. On his right, and closest to the woman, ran the runt of the litter, a full head s orter the hammerer. His skin was the color of bile and had a clammy gleam to it, his scrawny form full of tics and stumbles. As for his features, they were testament to calamitous inbreeding, eyes bulging, chin receding, his nose no more than two slits that ran from between his eyes to just above his twisted mouth.