Hidden Away (38 page)

We’ve not had supper; I’ve not had a drink. I place my hands on his hips, but let him drive the entire interaction. While he kisses me, he takes small steps, moving me backward through the house until finally, my legs hit the mattress, and I fall onto it.

My jaw is clenched as I wait, gazing up at him. I have to look away because the expressions that flit over his face are too much. He goes from worry to sexy to fearful to nervous in a matter of seconds, so I focus on his hands unbuttoning his shirt.

When he stands completely naked before me, I let my eyes wander over his body. The light from the waning day filters in through the small open cracks of the curtains. As much as I want to lie here and wait for him to make the moves that will tell me what and how much he wants, I sit up, take his hips again, and bring him to me.

With him in my mouth, I understand it all. As with everything, Kurt is very tentative. He won’t thrust, but he moans loudly as I move my lips over him. When his breathing is harsh, he stops me from continuing by putting his hands in my hair. A gentle nudge on my shoulder is all it takes to send me back down flat on the bed.

Kurt removes my clothing with considerable help; then his eyes scan the room. “It’s in the table,” I say almost too quiet to hear, afraid that too much voice would make this come to an end.

As he moves to the drawer next to the bed, I scoot up, so my head is on a pillow. He won’t look at me. His movements aren’t quite mechanical, but they aren’t natural as he swings his leg over my torso. He uses one hand to steady his body and the other to ready himself.

I want to kiss him, but he looks so scared that I don’t dare to move, even as he positions himself over me and slowly sinks down. His eyes are everywhere, but I keep mine focused on his face. It doesn’t take me long to realize I won’t be able to control myself.

My attempt to take his cock in my hands is thwarted as he pushes them away. He wraps his fingers around himself, but doesn’t stroke. It seems more like protection than anything else, but before I can say or do anything more about it, I come.

Eyes close, mouth opens, hands grip, toes curl.

Then he is off of me and in the bathroom. As I come back to myself, I grow worried that everything we do together will be like this.

But before I can go outside for a smoke and a drink, he is back in my bed, his body shaping itself around me. I stroke his hair, but can’t keep my eyes open even though it is not yet dark outside.

When I wake, the night is black. I can’t remember my dream, but it feels like it was a good one for a while before it turned horrible right before I woke up.

I sit up when I realize Kurt’s not in my bed. My heart beat speeds up, and I can’t control the panic. I search every room until I realize he’s not here. When I’ve hastily pulled on pants and a shirt, I rush out to the porch with the intent to find him, but the bottle of whiskey stops me.

What would I say to him anyway? What did I think would happen? He isn’t ready for any of this. He isn’t willing to be a part of any of this. He is a broken man, and I can’t fix him. As I get lost in alcohol and cigarettes, I realize that I can’t even fix myself.

Chapter 20

 

Mauthausen, Austria
1944
“K
URT
!
Come away from there!”

I ignored Jules, not even looking behind me as I strayed closer to the fence. At one time, my heart would’ve been racing, but now I wasn’t sure I’d ever been this calm.

Nothing mattered.

 

At all.

I was almost close enough to touch it. I’d seen other prisoners do the same. If they managed to touch it before they got shot, their bodies would sizzle and dance, then hang by unmovable fingers.

The whole process took under a minute. It seemed like a worthy trade: a minute of intensely painful sensation to end years of constant torment.

“Stop!” a guard shouted. The click of his weapon followed.
Bullets would achieve the same outcome and would potentially be quicker, although if the guard was a poor shot, I could have a lifetime of even more pain than I was accustomed.
He ordered me to put my hands up. When I complied, the sleeve of my shirt rode up and revealed the tattoo given to me by the commandant. It was the only prisoner identification tattoo in the camp, and it was evident the guard understood what it meant.
He lowered the gun. “Get away from the fence.” The way his boots squished through the mud made him look as though he was gliding toward me. He took my arm and yanked me back, then shoved me toward Jules.
My old barrack leader caught me by the shoulders, then turned us in the correct direction as the guard pointed his gun toward the headquarter building.
“See?” I said as we walked. “I can’t choose to die even if I wanted to.”
Though he said nothing, I felt Jules’s tension. Perhaps I would’ve carried the same burden as he if I could’ve felt anything.
But this was all routine. I knew what awaited me in the commandant’s office. There was no sweet death for me. I’d been marked. While every single man who’d been on my transport was dead, I was still forced to complete the same tasks each day.
Without Peter.
Today my commandant was kind. I could see it in his eyes as soon as I walked through the door. I played Beethoven first, then Tchaikovsky, then Mahler, followed by the Nazi anthem. I now thought of the music as setting the mood. Beethoven was accepted music; Tchaikovsky, while banned, was only homosexual, which was slightly above Jewish. Mahler was uniformly banned, but my commandant enjoyed his compositions. The Nazi anthem was the climax— the part of the day where he’d press his cock into my back and either run his hands down my chest or violently position me how he wanted.
Many days, the violence was preferable. When he was kind, I felt confused. Peter might have called me his sanity, but now that he was gone—nothing more than sodden ash mixed back into the earth—I realized that he was mine. As I suffocated the remaining life out of his body that night, I was condemning myself to the slow path of insanity.
On days like today, I found that my mind couldn’t keep anything straight as I lay back against my commandant. He was always so careful to lock the door after the one intrusion years ago, so he’d become more comfortable with touching me even after the sex was over.

Today my back was against his chest, both of our bodies coming back to normal after the effort of intercourse. He ran a hand down my chest, fingers tickling my skin. I wished he wouldn’t do it, but I had no power to stop him. It was easier to imagine him as Peter.

All it took was the fine cord that linked me to this harsh reality to snap, and I wasn’t with the commandant anymore. I was in Peter’s apartment, lying in his bed as he indulged me as his lover.

Contentment swelled within me. I could stay like this forever, listening to lovely words, feeling beautiful sensations, loving the man who touched me.

The love I felt was real until I returned to the camp accompanied by Jules. It was on the walk that the true reality set in. Peter had been strapped to the horse right over there. He’d been whipped, raped, and sent back to our barrack to die.

But he didn’t die.
I killed him.

Roll call was always the same. I no longer had to listen to perform well. Hats on, hats off was ingrained so deeply within me that I was barely aware of the action. Dinner was no different than ever, except now I routinely gave my bread away. The commandant fed me well enough, and I found the evening meal to be too big for my stomach, so I always threw the bread into the center of the room and watched the other musicians scramble to get to it first.

Like birds in a public square.

 

At night, I did not dream anymore. When my mind settled to sleep, everything went black.

I awoke each morning to the remembrance of where I was and who I was without. I pushed my legs over the bunk and dropped down, knees creaking, bones aching, body chilled.

The entire routine was tiresome, but necessary.

 

Today I took pity on Jules and did not go near the fence.

The commandant was kind again. Not quite as loving, but decent to me. I slipped back into my fantasy of Peter.

The next day, my commandant ordered me to play a Nazi song straight off. When he pressed his cock hard into my shoulder blade, he used the heel of his hand to shove my face into the polished wood of the piano. He was angry today, and there was pain.

But it didn’t matter.
None of it did.

There would be another day almost exactly the same tomorrow. And another one after that.

There was no end to this and thus, nothing to hope for. It was better that I was numb; that I let it all happen and did not struggle against any of it.

Chapter 21

 

Berkeley, California
1952

I
DELIBERATELY
stay away from the Fourniers because I’m not sure what to say or do when I see Kurt. The more I think about it, the more it hurts that he just left after sex.

When I see him at school, I keep my head down. He doesn’t even notice me as I pass him on the way to the library. Charles can tell something’s wrong, but I won’t tell him.

“Come on, let’s go get a drink,” he says midafternoon.

Although my day on campus is over, I shake my head. “Nah. Going home.”
“To do what?”
“What does it matter? I don’t want go to the bar and drink with a bunch of—”
“Look,” he interrupts. “There’s your cleaning boy. Should we go say hello?”
“No.”
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I should’ve known Charles, the master of all things unspoken, would pick up on my tension. “John, you dirty dog.”

“What?” I keep walking, but he does not.

Finally, I stop and turn around. He’s giving me that look of his—the one that tells me I can have no secrets from him. “You boffed him.”

My jaw clenches. This is one of those times when Charles grates on my nerves.

He jogs to catch up to me as I make my way to the parking lot. “Christ, you’re like a world traveler! A consumer of fine men. What? You’ve had English, Irish, French, Aussie, and Italian if you count that mechanic from New Jersey who got your truck working last year. What was his name?”

“Carmine,” I reply without meaning to. “And now the German. How was it?” “Shut it, Chuck.”

“Don’t be coy,” he says, not even acknowledging the name he hates. “I know you want to spill the beans, so spill it. You’ve been so wrapped up in this guy, you can’t—”

I stop in the middle of the traffic flow. “Leave it be!”

Charles knits his brow together, then grabs my arm and pulls me out of the way of the cars. He just looks at me for what seems like forever, then finally, he lets out a breath and cocks his head to the side. “What happened?”
“He left before the morning.”

“So? Isn’t that how you like it?”

I wave my hand toward him in dismissal. He wouldn’t understand, so I walk away. I can hear him following me, but I ignore him as I hop into my truck and back up. He’s saying my name, trying to get me to talk, but I keep going.

I don’t find comfort until I’m on my porch, cigarette burning between two fingers and whiskey burning in my belly. If I had more energy, I would destroy something. Maybe rip down the shelving in my house that holds my army gear. Maybe I’d use the stock of my rifle to smash my radio or the record player.

The rifle would feel good in my hands. Something solid to hold. Something that represents protection. Without realizing it, I’ve assembled the M-1. I’m pointing it into the mirror in the bathroom. All I need now is my field uniform, and I’d be the killer again.

But it takes too much work to dress in my military clothes, so instead, I strip down to nothing but boxers. Looking at the scars on my body as I hold my weapon triggers something inside that makes the world fade away. I’m back in Europe in any one of a hundred towns that all look the same. Marching through with the rest of the division, belly tight, mind alert and ready for anything.

All of the sudden, we’re surrounded. My body is searing as hot pain slices at me. I’m blinded by the flash of machine guns, deafened by the sounds of grenades. I’m afraid, but I push on. I don’t do it for myself, but for my brothers. We count on each other. If I don’t do my job, Jim or David or Robbie dies. I couldn’t live with myself if that happens!