The Cutting Room (19 page)

him. When the light was gone, and I could see him

no more, I left the bar, crossed the street and pressed the

third-floor buzzer. The intercom hummed in response. I let

myself in and climbed the stairs.

The door to the apartment was open. I pushed it wide

and glanced down the dark, narrow hallway. The place

looked derelict. Paper peeled from the walls in jagged

tongues, exposing the dark treacle of Victorian varnish

on the plaster beneath. The floor was bare, untreated

boards. I walked towards a light at the end of the corridor, ready for anything, ready to run if need be. I hesitated,

listening for a moment, then, hearing nothing, stepped into

a long sitting room.

The light came from two tall picture windows which let in

the glow of the street lamps; the only furniture was a wooden table and two upright chairs. The boy still sat by the window.

He turned towards me, tousled blond hair, dreamy face, lids

drooping as if in an opium trance. I judged him to be about

twenty, slighter than me, good muscle tone, but I knew I

could take him in an unarmed fight. He smiled a lazy smile,

rose slowly, and came towards me.

When he was close enough for our breath to merge he

The Worm on the Bud 151

stopped, passive, waiting. I could feel the heat of him, sense tented towards me; he discarded them and his cock raised

his quickening heartbeat. The blood moved faster through my

itself almost to his belly, an exclamation to his navel. I started veins, breath shortened, balls tightened. I stood still, playing to undress, folding my clothes as I went.

master, forcing him to make the first move. He tilted his

He watched from the bed, playing gently with his erection, head, glazed blue eyes met mine, then he put a warm, lazy

teasing me. `You’re not in a hurry?

hand inside my jacket, smooth fingers running a light touch up `Some things are better slow.’

and down my torso, unbuttoning my white shirt, licking his

A man of the world. My cock felt like it might explode

tongue through the dark hair on my chest, tasting the salt

with his first touch. I put myself on the bed beside him,

sweat on my body, flicking against my nipples hard and

ran my hands over his chest again, then took his hard,

strong. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder, tightened my grip medium-thick cock in my hands, feeling its strength,

slowly, then took him by the hair at the nape of his neck and moving the foreskin up and down until he groaned at

forced his head back. The boy’s body tautened, panic welling me to

with the change of tempo. His fear gave me an infusion of

`Stop! I’ll come too soon if you keep that up.’

power. He trembled in my grasp and my cock hardened. I

`I’m concerned to keep something up.’

forced his head back further, until he was looking me straight `No problems there, my man.’

in the eye, then put my mouth to his and kissed him. I felt his He laughed, flipped over onto his belly, head level with

young boy skin, soft against my bristles, and our tongues met.

my groin and took my erection into his mouth. I let him

I loosened my grip and ran a hand across his hairless chest, blow me, his mouth working its way up and down the

feeling him relax, tracing the faint swell of his pectorals, shaft, paying special attention to the head, then moving

glancing over the pebble-hard nipples, trailing my index finger down to engulf each of my balls, gently, probing his

down to his navel, undoing his fly button, feeling his cock, as tongue to rim me until the feeling became so intense I

hard as mine, straining against his jeans. I rubbed him through pulled away.

the denim and he whispered, `I want you to fuck me.’ An

The boy gazed up at me, pupils dilated, lips glossed with a American accent.

sheen of pre-cum. His voice was soft, insistent. `C’mon, fuck I released him and he led the way. Once more the room

me.’

was sparse, empty save for a mattress in the centre of the

I didn’t need to be asked a third time. `Got any lubrica

floor, raised slightly on wooden pallets.

tion??

‘You like fucking young boys?

He reached beneath the pillow and pulled out a tube of lube Running his hands down his groin, showing me the bulge

and a couple of condoms. `I like to keep it handy.’

beneath, turning himself on. I didn’t want him to talk.

The boy tore at the silver package with his teeth, his

`Seem to.’ Turning macho. `Get undressed.’

eagerness giving my balls another twist, then he placed the He unzipped and pulled down his jeans; white skivvies

unwrapped condom in his mouth, leant over, took my cock

in his hand and unfurled the condom over my erection,

giving it a few hard flicks with his tongue for good measure.

He rolled flat onto his belly, wriggling to get comfortable, arranging a couple of pillows to raise himself slightly,

positioning his rear. Tight buttocks more square than

round, hairless except for a few blond tendrils creeping

from the cleft between his cheeks. I started to grease him,

smoothing the Tube up towards his asshole, then gently

inside, rubbing tenderly round the sensitive ring of his

sphincter, hearing him moan, `… you’ve no idea how

much I need this …’, nudged his legs far apart with my

knee and set to work.

In anal sex it is of great importance that your partner is

relaxed. Too much resistance can lead to tearing of the anal sphincter, resulting in infection, or a loss of muscle tension, leading to leakage of the back passage - unpleasant. Other

possible side effects include a split condom - which may result in the contraction of x IV or several other harmful infections piles, and a punch in the face for inflicting too much pain. All this aside, I like my sexual partners to have as good a time as I can give them. I find it stimulating.

I massaged his ring gently for a while, slipping a finger

inside to open him up. He responded, moving towards me,

then whispered, `Do it.’ I added a glob of Tube to the tip of my cock then moved hard, pressing against him, forcing my way

in, paying no mind to his moan of discomfort. I grasped him

round his chest, holding him to me, working slow to build up a rhythm, gentle, insistent against the resistant muscle,

forcing myself forward, deeper, hearing him say, `That’s it

…yes … like that … Yes …’ Then putting my finger in his mouth, allowing him to bite it hard, to help him respond to the pleasure/pain I was giving him and because I didn’t

want to hear any talking now, just to see the images flashing in my head.

Memories of encounters honed into fuck-triggers. I ima gined myself in a movie I’d seen … raping this boy… taking him against his will … forcing him into liking a big cock up his arse … I was in a tunnel way beneath the city …the smell of ordure in my lungs …the scuttle of rats around me … fucking a stranger against the rough brick of a wall … The shuffle of footsteps coming closer … My climax was building, balls slapping against his buttocks, spunk swelling. The images scrolled on. It was coming now … getting close …blood-red vision of the orgasm blackout …Here it came … a wound, red and deep and longing …the dark basement …the slash of blood across her throat …the reflection imposed on the inside of my retina

as true as if I was looking at the photograph …the girl, used and bound, lying dead on her pallet. I came, spurting into him, grasping”his buttocks for support, rocking with the force of my orgasm.

`You’re squashing me.’ For an instant I couldn’t make out

what he was saying. His words a jumble of noise intruding on my thoughts. `Hey, buddy, you can get off now.’

I rolled over and pulled at the condom. It came away with a

snap, and my member lolled out, tired, flaccid already. You

and me both, pal, I thought. There was a smear of spunk

across his belly where he had come while I was fucking him.

Thank Christ. Depression was creeping in, `the after dream of the reveller on opium - the bitter lapse into every day life the hideous dropping off of the veil’, and I had no stomach for tender mercies. I wiped myself on the sheets, got up and

started to dress.

`That was neat. Say, I like your jacket.’

I could feel his relief at my leaving, and for the first time gave him a smile. `Any time, son.’

I let myself out of the apartment and began the long walk

home.

Sunlighf and birdsong woke me at 4 a.m. The light hurt my

eyes and the birdsong disagreed with my hangover. I willed

myself back to sleep. Then I thought about buying a rifle,

nothing fancy, just long-range enough to shoot a few birds. I lay prone on my mattress, dimly aware of flaked paint and

fine cracks etching a fantasy landscape across the yellowed

ceiling, then propped myself up on a couple of pillows,

rolled a joint and lit it. I held the smoke down in my chest until my lungs creaked, then exhaled slowly. Slender

arabesques crept upwards and settled in a haze below the

ceiling. Prisms of cut glass swayed gently from the window

lintel. Refracted light - red, indigo, yellow, green - floated around the room. I watched silently, rolling and smoking.

My body seemed the repository of a dead man. I could think

and smoke but all feeling was gone. Inside was nothing.

Beneath my slack skin was a skeleton framed by blood and

gore. I possessed the required internal organs but the soul

was missing. I felt like taking the lit end of the joint and placing it against my arm, cauterising despair in one definite act of pain.

I lifted a paperback from the floor and tried to read. It was a tale of adventurers in the desert, but the distant smell of the river drifted across me, the smell of John and Steenie’s

bookshop. I coughed and turned a damp page. My mind

went back to the girl, her riven throat, the eye behind the

lens. Steenie knew something. He’d left the bar like a man

pursued. Yesterday, I had decided to drop the investigation.

Today, it seemed I had no choice but to go on.

Coloured light danced across yellowed walls. The birdsong

faded. I lay back and closed my eyes.

Making Up is Hard to Do

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet:

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

Christina Rossetti, `Song’

PERHAPS IT WAS A public holiday. Les’s street was full of

children. Three wee girls were practising a dance routine

they’d seen on the television, singing and stepping in quick time. A couple of admiring toddlers formed their audience.

One tried to join in and was shushed back to the role of fan. A football match was taking place in the middle of the road. The

ball scuffed around half a dozen boys, bouncing occasionally onto the pavement. A Sikh shopkeeper scattered fragments of

stale morning rolls in front of a commotion of pigeons.

Someone headed the ball across the road. A tackle became

a scuffle and it slipped from between the players’ feet,

ricocheting with a bang against the side of a parked car.

The pigeons flapped into the air, wearily circled the rooftops once and returned.

The shopkeeper muttered, `I wish they’d never bloody

traffic-calmed this street. I’d take cars over they boys any day.’

A man, stripped to the waist, leant from his tenement

window and shouted directions to the players. A couple of

middle-aged cornerboys stood outside the pub, smoking,

watching the game. You have to learn to pace yourself when

you have all the time in the world.

I’d told Rose that I would put things straight with Les, but now I was on my way to see him I wasn’t so sure he would let me. The problem lay in that blanked-out space. The forgotten part of the evening where, instead of a memory, there was an empty feeling of shame.

A young girl crossed the street and made towards me.

Once upon a long time ago she’d been pretty. You could see it in the length of her leg, the turn of her cheek. The cornerboys’

gaze followed her, checked out the taut thighs, the neat

rear, then turned away, pitched downwards on the seesaw of

desire, as they caught sight of her gaunt face, the creased, dark hollows of her eyes. She hurried through the football match in a jerky puppet dance, avoiding the ball without looking. Her thin frame crackled. Mercury in her veins. A girl living on

borrowed time.

She fell into pace beside me. `I need to talk to you.’

I kept walking, but put my hand in my pocket and rooted

around for small change. `Sure you do, but it’s fine.’

She stepped into my path, holding me there, dark eyes sunk

deep in her skull, looking at me from somewhere far away.

She’d cut her hair herself. It hung in ragged tufts about her face.

`You’re a friend o’ that guy Les, eh?

She pulled her lips back in a smile. Her teeth were the

colour of old ivory, a tainted, canine yellow. Tiny flecks of grey foam gathered at the corners of her mouth.