Flowers in a Dumpster (5 page)

As Steve turned to leave, he caught sight of something from the corner of his eye. At first, in the failing light, he couldn’t make sense of what he saw, but when he stepped closer it became clear. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath.

Deflated, Steve made his way back to the kitchen. Al stood by the open backdoor, glass of water clutched in his hands so tightly Steve was afraid it would shatter.

“It’s real,” Al said, looking into his lover’s eyes. “We’re trapped in this house like they said.”

“It would appear so. I don’t know how, but there doesn’t seem to be any way out of here.”

Al lowered his head and began to cry, soft but powerful sobs that racked his body. Steve hugged him close, kissing him on the forehead and whispering meaningless assurances that everything would be all right. Steve was wryly amused by the way he and Al were reacting to this impossible situation. Al was the one who thrived on tales of the absurd and impossible, yet it was Steve who had managed to maintain his wits in the face of their otherworldly predicament.

“What are we going to do?” Al asked, his well of tears finally running dry. “I mean, what can we do?”

“I guess there’s nothing we can do right now. We need to think this through, figure a way to get out of here.”

“Did you find anything upstairs?” Al asked.

“Um, no. Nothing useful.”

Al studied his lover’s face for a moment. “Steve, what’s up there?”

“I told you, nothing.”

“Bullshit, there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“You don’t want to know, Al. Trust me on this one.”

“Tell me what it is or you know I’ll go look for myself.”

Now it was Steve who studied Al’s face, examining the resolve he saw there. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Steve led Al up to the attic, his feet shuffling slowly. Once they reached the attic, Al followed Steve over to one corner of the darkened room. Steve had hoped it would be gone, like the car, but it was still there. Magic-marker scribbled on the wall. Three names—Linda, Fred, Gracie—and several hatch marks, four in a row with a fifth slashed through. Al seemed to be counting under his breath, but Steve had already done the calculations.

“Thirty-one,” he said aloud. “Must be months. Thirty-one to be exact, that’s two years and seven months. I saw no calendars in this place, so this was the only way they had to keep track of how long they were prisoners here.”

“Well, we already knew that. Why didn’t you want me to see this?”

“It wasn’t this I didn’t want you to see.”

Al hesitated. Finally he said, “Show me.”

Without speaking, Steve turned his attention to the far corner. Al walked over, getting his eyes close to the wall. When his vision adjusted, Al gasped and backpedaled quickly.

Here were three other names—Macey, Teddy, and Ralph. And more hatch marks; too many to count. They covered the entire wall on this side of the attic, from floor to ceiling.

“This must be more than twenty years,” Al said softly, reverently.

“I’d say that’s a conservative estimate. To fill up the entire wall, I’d say that was much more than twenty years.”

“Should we count them?”

“Do we dare?” Steve asked hollowly. “Do we really want to know? I mean,
really
?”

Al lowered himself slowly to his knees and began to cry again. Silent tears that rolled fat and copiously down his cheeks. Steve joined his lover on the floor, cradling and rocking him.

“Fred, Linda and Gracie got out in two and a half years,” Steve said, a tremor in his voice that might have been hope or desperation. “We could get lucky. Someone could happen along tomorrow.”

Al’s eyes never left the hatch marks. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

They stayed in that position, kneeling on the floor in each other’s arms, for some time. Full dark had fallen outside before Steve noticed that Al had fallen asleep. Steve gently lifted his lover in his arms and carried him to the master bedroom on the second floor. He laid Al on the four-poster bed beneath the billowy canopy, kissing him softly on his sweaty brow.

Steve left the room, closing the door behind him. He stopped in the second-floor bathroom and washed his bloody knuckles, bandaging them with some gauze he found in the medicine cabinet. He made his way down the curving staircase to the foyer and stared at a world of which he was no longer a part.

The universe certainly had a sense of irony. He and Al had always wanted to live in a house like this.

He finally understood the old cliché,
be careful what you wish for
.

Steve glanced down at the front stoop, the welcome mat with the silly cat designs mocking him with its cheeriness. With a sigh that embodied all the weariness one could bear, Steve closed the door.

TRANSFORMATIONS

Jason first discovered a reference to
Transformations
on a message board dedicated to people like himself; those inflicted with the curse of homosexuality and seeking a way out.

A recovering lesbian from Utah fleetingly mentioned a book as being instrumental in her conversion. She’d gone into no further detail, but Jason was left with the impression of it being some kind of self-help book.

A Google search yielded only minimal results, but he’d learned enough to discover
Transformations
was no self-help book. Instead, it was a book of spells. Spells that could, reputedly, change a person into something they were not. Change a person’s appearance, attitudes, even gender. And yes, sexual orientation.

Normally, Jason would have laughed off such claims as ludicrous, but he’d already tried therapy, religion, even hypnotism. Nothing worked. He was desperate.

Tracking down a copy to purchase proved a difficult enough task. The book was rare, dating back to the early 1900s. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could pop into Borders and pick up. Jason found a few on eBay going for as much as one thousand dollars, much too steep for a social worker’s salary. Finally, he had contacted the recovering lesbian from the message board, the one from whom he had first heard of the book. She still had her copy and offered to part with it for the bargain price of four hundred dollars. This put quite a strain on Jason’s wallet, but his desperation had grown into an obsession.

The spell to change one’s sexual orientation proved to be surprisingly simple. Jason had expected something complicated, requiring ingredients such as ‘eye of newt’ while sitting in the center of a pentagram. Instead, all he needed to do was recite a short incantation to invoke an elemental demon with sway over the powers of identity and sexual desires, at the stroke of midnight during a full moon. Being an educated man, of course Jason did not believe in demons. However, he hoped performing the spell would act as some sort of psychosomatic panacea, and he would awaken in the morning craving female companionship, like a lifelong vegetarian who suddenly discovers he loves the taste of meat.

So as the witching hour approached at the next full moon, Jason turned out the lights in his apartment, took a seat on his bedroom floor, and lit a variety of black candles surrounding him. Not because the spell required it, but because he felt the circle of candlelight lent the proceedings a certain needed ambiance.

Then, at the moment when it was neither today nor tomorrow, Jason recited the invocation.

“I call on you, Lord of Desire. I call on you to come to me, to make me that which I am not, but that which I so long to be. Reveal yourself to me, my Lord. Wield your power like a mace. Reach your hands deep inside me, to my most secret inner place. Mold my soul as if it’s clay and you a potter at the wheel. Transform my desires, my very essence, change the way I think and feel. I call on you, Lord of Desire. I beseech you to bestow your help on this poor soul whose body is a traitor. Please make me into someone else.”

As his voice faded into silence, Jason tensed. His hands curled into tight fists in his lap, and waited for . . . he wasn’t exactly sure what he was waiting for. Perhaps a flash of fire and smoke? An elaborate light show? A phantom draft that would blow out the candles and plunge him into unrelenting darkness? There was nothing, though. The candles’ flames did not even flicker. Even though he had not actually expected anything otherworldly to occur, he had to admit his disappointment.

The sound of someone rather pointedly clearing his throat caused Jason to jump, knocking over one of the candles and singeing the carpet before he was able to douse the flame. His eyes darted about the room, seeking out the source of the sound. His gaze finally trained on a man standing in the doorway of the open closet, leaning casually against the jamb with his arms folded across his chest. His expression, mild interest bordering on all-out boredom, seemed out of place in Jason’s bedroom.

Jason opened his mouth to speak but found his voice locked away inside.

A smile curled one corner of the stranger’s lips and he said in a deep baritone voice, “In the immortal words of Lurch . . .
you rang
?”

Jason tried to speak again but couldn’t get past the blockage in his throat. He swallowed hard and made another attempt, squeaking out the words, “Who are you?” in a breathless rush.

“I’m the one you called for, of course.” The stranger stepped farther into the room, moving with a lithe grace. He was tall with a muscular physique, black wavy hair and a neat mustache and goatee. Jason felt himself stiffening in his pants, which made him cry.

“Dry your tears, mortal,” the stranger said, squatting down in front of Jason. “I’m here to end your suffering.”

A few sniffles and a swipe of his arm across his eyes later, and Jason had himself back under control. “So you’re the Lord of Desire?”

“I am, but you may call me Andros.”

“I didn’t really believe you existed.”

“Luckily, belief isn’t needed in order to summon me, only desperation. And you seem to have that in spades.”

“Can you help me?” Jason asked, reaching out to touch the man but pulled back before making contact. “Can you take away these wicked desires and make me normal?”

Andros’ smile was easy and inviting. Funny, he didn’t look or act like a demon at all. “I can. For a price.”

Jason frowned;
Transformations
hadn’t mentioned anything about a price. “I don’t have much money, I’m afraid. I paid what little savings I had for the book I used to summon you.”

“Demons have no need for mortal currency,” Andros said with a booming laugh. “We trade in souls.”

“You want a soul?”

“Don’t sell me short, my friend. I am much greedier than that. I don’t want
a
soul. I want thirteen.”

Jason’s mouth fell open. “Thirteen souls? How am I supposed to provide you with thirteen souls?”

“That I do not know,” Andros said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But that is the payment I require to grant your request. Specifically, the souls of thirteen homosexual men, sacrificed to me.”

“I have to . . . kill them?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Just bring them here and get them into the closet. I will do the rest.”

“The closet?”

That half-smile touched Andros’s lips once more, a look of wry amusement. “Rather appropriate irony, wouldn’t you say? Just get them inside the closet and close the door. I will take them.”

“Will I have to . . . will there be any clean-up involved?”

“There will be nothing left. I will devour their flesh as well as their souls. No fuss, no muss.”

Jason stared into Andros’s handsome face for a moment then glanced at the closet. The space was cramped with no light inside. He didn’t like the idea of committing murder, let alone multiple murders, but as Andros said, Jason wouldn’t have to
kill
anyone. Not directly, at least. He knew he was arguing semantics with himself, but it was the price Andros demanded. “I suppose if it’s the only way.”

“It is. But you must act quickly, mortal. You have only until the next full moon to fulfill the terms of this pact. If you fail, you will never receive what you desire.”

Jason waffled for only a moment, before he made up his mind. “I’ll do it,” he said and held out his hand. Andros’s grip when he shook was firm and warm.

“It is a deal then,” Andros said, backing up until he was inside the closet, surrounded by sweatshirts and jeans. “The souls of thirteen homosexual men, and then I will grant your request.”

With that, the closet door slammed shut of its own accord, and the candles blew out.

***

Jason delivered the first soul the very next night. He found the man—he refused to think of him as a
victim
—at the town’s only gay club, a place called Liaisons. Jason had always secretly wanted to visit the establishment, but this was the first time he had ever actually stepped foot inside. It looked like any other bar. No naked men, no leather, no sex in shadowy corners. There were a few drag queens walking around and couples of the same sex swayed in one another’s arms on the dance floor, but those were the only signs of the bar being a haven for homosexuals.

He took a seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and scanned the crowd. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Having fought his homosexuality his entire life, he was clueless as to the ins and outs of gay courtship, so to speak. Should he pick someone and offer to buy him a drink, engage in a little chitchat? Or should he just cut right to the chase and invite someone back to his apartment?