After Camelot

Adam Graves /Wayne Primeau

NC-17, dark themes, fiction means I made this all up

NIGHT

It is an odd place to end up. Here we are at the very end of the empire.

It is like being in exile here. I was pushed out of the hockey palaces, Detroit, Edmonton and New York, and am now shunted beyond the pale. We are cast-out of the pleasant places and we roam the shadowy hinterlands.

As shadowed as the hinterlands can get in California.

Currently it is very dark. Black out dark, but it is not a black out. The curtains are closed, the lights are out the building, is only half occupied, it is a summer city for tourists, and it’s not tourist season.

There could be stars but I do not have my eyes open at this second. There are no torches on the walls illuminating this scene; there are just the pinpricks in the limp curtains that let in dim light.

This is an unfashionable part of the beach to be on. This is no longer a hotel for the summer season; it is a hotel for the destitute season. Short term leases, pay in cash, and leave nothing of value in the room.

I leave nothing of value behind me.

“You can pretend you are in a different country, everything has names in a language you don’t understand.”

He nods like he understands what I am talking about. I grin like I know what I am talking about rather than just filling up the quiet.

“Santa Clara, San Carlos, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto.”

Wayne’s eyes are drowsy.

“The Santa Anna’s blow in, bring CRAZYNESS.” I laugh and Wayne laughs as well, but he doesn’t understand what I am saying, his eyes unfocused and glazed.

It is good to have something to blame; there should always be a reason for an action, for a consequence, rather than a unexpected act of god or the devil or whomever; rather than a random loss.

Ah he’s pretty, another pretty… Another pretty… I look at him. Another pretty boy by the beach. I run my hands along his chest. I like the solid slabs of flesh under me, he is bigger than the little boys, the runaways from club-land, who drift in and out, who sun on the beach for one second and are gone. They don’t know or care who I am.

Mutual indifference, I don’t care for them either.

I run my hands over Wayne’s hair. Very soft. I laugh every time I say his name, as I tell him more of this bedtime story.

Bedtime. Quiet time, the smell of powder, and patterned sheets. I shake my head that is not where I am anymore.

I am telling him something else, about some other names, something about Canada, or Edmonton, or the two of them together. Something with lots of names that hang in the air like jewels to dazzle and distract him.

If I tell him what I am, it will tell me what I am as well.

I tip more into the glass, the golden chalice, and hold it carefully above his mouth. He opens his lips greedily and sucks it back. It is so hot; you want any type of moisture in your mouth. It is clear and cold and could be anything. It is anything I want.

“Open your mouth.” I whisper and he does. I dip my finger in the white powder and let him suck it off the tip. He jumps at the taste but I smile. I point to the bedside table and he stares at me.

“Just like in the movies.” I tell him and push him forward, I lean down from behind him to snort up some of the white powder, I breath it in deeply, I hear him snuffle a bit at the unfamiliar sensation, now things are a blur, now things are properly messed up, now things….

I laugh again. His eyes are drifting open and closed and he is a clock melting over the bed changing time, stopping, we are outside of time, we go forward and back and forward again. We can change the past and control the future, we can decide who stays here and who goes away and when and we can make it fair. Over the bed and under the stars, sinking into the deepest black, soprettyprettypretty….

I shove him down and he half rises up to meet me. I push him back and our hands are tearing ripping as our mouths are biting and devouring, I get enough of a grip on his wrists to hold him down and our bodies are desperate for each other, we are slammed into, against each other, the bed, the wall, the door, the black, the light, the sea the air, so very pretty under me….

It is a blur from there. I can assume what happened.

It is a familiar scent. The slight damp-mould smell of the apartment. A tiny tint of ocean in the air. Come. Stale blood. And salty sweat, dirty bodies.

I have never done this with a team mate before. I have hidden the secret desires of my flesh as I have hidden this apartment from my wife and family. As I have always had a secret space. It is not a sin, I am to old to believe in sin, but in a sudden moment of clarity in drink and drugs and desire I wonder if the loss of him was cosmic payback for not controlling my desires. A secret apartment to hid secret shame, secret blame. I cannot drink enough to make the though go away.

It is late. It is hot. It is dark. It is over. It is done. Time starts because it is over. Time starts because we want it to. There is nothing to do but sleep. So I sleep. I smell hospitals. I dream or not. It is in my imagination or we are doing it again.