King Perry (14 page)

I don’t know how much actual time elapses while we fuck, listening to each other and the night sounds. The moon drifts through more sky, I know that. After a while, I feel Perry glide back into putty mode, and I roll him on his stomach for some deep dicking. Roughly ten minutes of punching his prostate knocks him senseless again.

I put him back on his side.

“Where was I? Oh yes, the demand.”

Perry rolls his head drunkenly.

My hand grazes his cock to make sure it’s hard, quivering. It is.

“King Samiir argued passionately that nobody should answer the demand. He remembered his time among the Lost Kings and nurtured a strong aversion to any one man responding. Tanak, the Wall Street King, argued that it wouldn’t achieve anything. Others disagreed, suggesting that if the Lost Ones welcomed a Found King among them, they might soften and remember.”

I speak quieter, and Perry’s head pushes back so my voice is closer to his ear.

“If several key kings had been present for the debates, such as the King of Compromises or the Opera King, things might have played out differently. Those two and a dozen others possessed astonishing gifts which might have uncovered a way to honor the Lost Kings’ demand. But they lived among the lost, waiting for the spark of life to remind them who they were always meant to be.”

“Very ironic,” Perry says, his voice fading.

“Found Kings love paradox. Lost Kings love irony, the shadow of paradox.”

Perry grunts, and his words come out all dreamy as he says, “I’m not a lost king.”

“The Found—”

Gross. Did I just swallow a bug? Ish.

I clear my throat with as little scratching as I can. Ignore it. Don’t ruin this.

“The Found Kings puzzled over this knot of a problem, how to respect their lost brothers’ request and show them love without losing a Found King for ten years. If that king forgot
his
kingship, the Lost Ones’ next complaint might be ‘You never sent us a Found King.’ In the middle of the debates, an eighteen-year-old man stepped forth, King Aabee. He said, ‘I will go. Send me!’”

I speak the last sentence louder, cheerful.

Perry half chuckles at my tone.

“The kings were astounded because they had not yet considered actually sending a Found King. That remained only one, rather smallish, possibility.”

I fuck him with an even, sawing pace. Perry totters once again between fully asleep and sensually aware. The champagne’s impact is probably gone, but he seems drunker than ever, more relaxed.

“King Aabee was Somali, tall and slender with coal black skin. He always wore long-sleeve white shirts sewn by his sisters, with silvery stitching that swam like tiny fishes down his arms’ length. He walked among them this day, arms stretching high above his head, his long fingers held to the sky. The older kings shook their heads in gratitude, because one of the youngest adult kings was schooling them in compassion and service.

“King Aabee repeated, ‘I will go. Send me!’”

Perry makes a noise in this throat, but I can’t tell what he intended: a word, a groan? He is quiet immediately. Maybe he’s responding to my long, slow strokes.

“With growing alarm, the Found Kings realized King Aabee wasn’t quite volunteering; he had already decided. ‘No, Aabee,’ they pleaded. ‘You do not understand. Ten years is a long time among the Lost Ones; you are likely to get lost yourself. We cannot lose our most promising king, the true leader of our people.’ But Aabee met these arguments with a wide smile and kissed each brother under his thumb, an expression among them of deep honor, known as the king’s kiss.”

Perry’s chest tightens, and I wonder if something resonates in him with how I kissed him on the pier, how I greeted his decision to not come with me. Almost immediately, his body sinks again, continues its blissful rhythm.

“The day King Aabee planned to leave the ancestral homelands, every king gathered at the southern gates, many to plead with him one last time. ‘Do not ruin your life. You need not go.’ Aabee greeted each brother’s concern with the king’s kiss, filling each man with grief and love.”

Perry is losing consciousness, about to ride out of the kingdom himself. I need to keep him awake for a few minutes longer. I fuck him deeper and harder.

“Oh,” Perry says. “King Aabee.”

“Yes. The parting banquet they prepared for King Aabee dazzled both sight and smell, a not-too-subtle attempt to dissuade him from this journey. The foods were his favorites, which meant delicacies he had never tasted, for best of all, he loved trying new things. Wise kings made passionate arguments. A German king named Detlof tried to distract Aabee with a game of chess. King Detlof was wily that way.”

“Det…,” Perry says.

He’s not long for this world. Better speed up the pace.

I whisper into his ear, “When they finally accepted they could not stop him, they asked, ‘What would you risk to find a lost king?’ ‘My youth!’ cried King Aabee.”

Softer, Vin. Softer.

“And what will you do if he does not remember you? As King Aabee rode from the kingdom, galloping away, aw-a-a-a-ay Perry, he called out to them, ‘I will show him my love. I will show him all my love.’”

He moans.

“
Remember the king
,” I say, the words more air than sound. “That’s what they shouted to Aabee as he began his ten-year, self-imposed exile among the Lost Ones.”

Once again, I whisper, “Remember the king
.
”

Perry gallops into darkness himself as I continue to push rhythmically in and out of his exhausted butt. Neither of us is going to get off at this point, but I might fall asleep inside him.

I repeat the phrase a while longer, alternating which ear I speak into, massaging his neck with my fingertips. I hold Perry tight and whisper all my love, until sleep, the gentle prison we all know nightly, summons me at last.

Six

I
JERK
awake suddenly, rattling Perry.

He’s warm. Perry’s
warm
. We’re in the same position as when I fell asleep. How long ago? Could I see the faintest hint of light when I fell asleep? The sun now gleams above the horizon. Damn. I was hoping for fog.

Perry’s tone is sharp when he says, “Oh crap.”

The ocean wind whipping us probably reminds him we’re not in a hotel room or his cozy one-bedroom apartment. The wind shifted direction at some point, hits us harder now. Yikes, that’s chilly. I snuggle deeper into him and kiss his shoulder to let him know I’m awake.

“It’s day,” he says.

Perry breathes heavily and relaxes, pushing back against me in a friendly hello. I note these changes within the span of a few seconds, briefly wondering whether my jerking awake woke him or we both woke at the same time.

“Hey,” says a voice near our feet. “Wake up.”

I feel a soft jolt against my foot, presumably for the second time.

“Wake up, you two.”

Perry’s body jerks to instant full alert.

“All right, all right.” My voice is thick with sleep. “Jeez, man, we’re having a tender moment.”

I already can’t remember what I dreamt about. Sugar packets were involved. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t even use sugar packets. Maybe the word
sugar
?

Raising myself on one elbow, I see Perry’s defense strategy is to pretend to remain asleep with his eyes open wide in terror. If Perry could run, he would. Of course, there’s nowhere to go unless you’re Jesus and can scuttle across the nearby waves.

“Morning, cutie,” I murmur into his ear.

Our human alarm clock says, “Howie says you brought me three boxes. Why didn’t you leave them the other night?”

I say, “I wanted one for myself but didn’t want to open the box without you. Seemed disrespectful.”

He says, “You’ve done that before.”

“Yeah, but it’s disrespectful. This time, I thought I’d ask you first. Did you bring me any empty knapsacks?”

“Yeah. Two.”

“Good.” I make sure the word communicates a soft rebuke.

He knows why.

“Oh my God,” Perry says with a groan. “Is this a drug deal?”

I use a cheery voice to say, “Maybe. Define drugs.”

Jerome grumbles an unintelligible response. I hear him unzip the backpack on my frame and rifle through its contents.

The sound catches Perry’s attention, and he maneuvers himself to sitting. If he’s to be arrested for drug trafficking, I think he wants to see which drugs.

Jerome pulls one free of the cardboard box, turns, and offers it to Perry.

“Nut Roll?” he says, wiggling it, as if this makes it more enticing.

When Perry doesn’t respond in any fashion, he tosses it to Perry and it lands with a soft thud on the sleeping bag.

“Nut Roll?” he asks me, drawing out another.

“Thank you,” I say, sitting up and rubbing my eyes, “I would love a Nut Roll. See? Wasn’t that polite?”

Jerome shoots me something between bored and exasperated and tosses another one onto the sleeping bag.

Wait. Why was I thinking about sugar packets a moment ago?

When Perry speaks, his words are slow. “These are candy bars.”

Jerome says, “Technically, it’s not candy. They’re Nut Rolls. You can only buy them in the Midwest.”

I say, “Jerome grew up outside Milwaukee.”

Perry stares up at a light-skinned black man, midfifties, peeling back a wrapper. And while Jerome hasn’t seemed especially friendly thus far, he looks affable enough eating those first few bites.

Jerome looks older to me than the last time I saw him. It’s funny how when you only see someone once in a while, you notice the subtle changes, the extra gray hairs on the side of his head, the lingering wrinkles. It’s been at least nine months. No, wait, I was here in March. Seven months.

“How do you know HG?” Jerome says, chewing.

Perry says, “HG.”

The initials hang there, a statement of sorts.

“We call him the Human Ghost,” Jerome says with a nod toward me. “We don’t know his real name. We prefer not to know it, actually. Or yours. Don’t tell me your name. Or his. Are you a lawyer?”

Perry says, “Excuse me?”

“You look like you’d be a lawyer. You have lawyer face.”

I say, “He’s an investment banker. His Alcatraz name is Nevada.”

Jerome ignores me. “Well, Nevada, how do you know HG?”

“I don’t,” Perry says, shifting against me. “We met on Tuesday. I know almost nothing about him, actually.”

I say, “This is our first date, Jerome. We’re weekend boyfriends.”

“Well, that’s weird,” Jerome says, biting off another inch of Nut Roll. He nods at the champagne bottle behind my head. “You guys couldn’t get drunk and screw in a hotel?”

I say, “It was a special night. I’ve never brought anyone to Alcatraz.”

“No, no,” he says. “I’m busting your chops, Ghostie. You’re cool.”

“Thanks, man. Seriously.”

“Just don’t make it a habit. It’s too much work. Howie and Steve helped me sweep the island last night since there wasn’t going to be any ten-minute boat warning. The three of us spent the whole time bitching about you on the walkie-talkies, about how much of a pain in the ass you are. Still, we drew straws over who got to patrol last night, because all three of us wanted to see what was up. We’re meeting for breakfast when I get off, because they want to know the score. So can I tell them about your investment banker?”

“Sure.”

“What’d you guys do last night?”

“Ran around the island. Spied on you.”

“Go inside?”

“Yeah. You patrolled nearby once.”

“Did you show him your cell?”

“No time. We were on a schedule.”

“Huh,” Jerome says. “Well, you did good. I never saw you two. When you coming back?”

“As soon as I get more vacation time, I guess. Probably February or March when I need a break from winter. Sorry we didn’t get to hang out this trip.”

Jerome grunts. “I put some letters in your knapsack. I brought you a picture.”

“Your grandkids? It’s about time.”

I pull myself up and reach hard toward the knapsack.

He says, “Don’t get up if you’re naked. I don’t need to see that shit.”

Jerome tosses the backpack to me and I extricate the photo he enclosed.

“They’re cute.” I make sure my voice expresses hesitation. “Of course, as a child, I was cuter than either of these two. They’re okay, though. Big smiles.”

“Don’t talk shit, Ghost. Anyone can see you were an ugly baby. Those kids are perfect. Jamie can read whole sentences already; he’s a prodigy. Also, don’t get a big head, but you were right about that sound. I had it checked out.”

“I
told
you.”

“I know, HG. And I’m saying you were right.” Jerome picks up the knapsack full of Nut Rolls. “Don’t be a dick.”

“Okay, okay. Thanks for waking us.”

I edge further out of the sleeping bag to shake his hand goodbye.

He says, “Next time you see them, you have to give Howie and Steve shit. After we drew straws and I won, they wanted to change it up and have all three of us patrol last night. Hunt you down, scare the crap out of you with guns drawn and everything. I reminded them how adamant you were about the regular patrolling. I didn’t change anything.”