The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (48 page)

We walked back to my apartment through the dark, deserted streets, Ivo making me laugh with the story of a strange thing that had happened to him in Cairo. He seemed to have traveled everywhere, despite his youth; I had never been further than two hundred miles from the house in which I had been born, and I could have listened to his stories of London and Berlin, Johannesburg and Moscow and Beijing, for the rest of my life.

He came upstairs with me when we reached my building; I unlocked my door and stepped inside, then looked back at him.

He was standing in the hallway, watching me. “Well, Kyle, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

A blush scalded my cheekbones; his smile told me he had noticed. “Please . . .” I said, “come in.”

“Thank you,” he murmured and stepped past me into the apartment.

Catlike, he insisted on exploring every nook and cranny, the kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, study, even the closets and the narrow stair that twisted up to the attic. He admired the prints on the walls, the rugs on the floor. I stood in the living room, once I had hung up our overcoats, and waited for him to come back to me, aware of something fluttering in the pit of my stomach like a bird. Eventually he returned, his blue eyes sparkling.

“This is very nice, Kyle,” he said, “but it seems so cold.”

“Cold?”

He came up to me, tilting his head back slightly to look me in the eyes; he was tall, but I was taller, as I was taller than almost everyone, all knees and elbows and clumsiness. “Have you ever loved anyone in these rooms?”

I could not meet his eyes. “I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”

“No?” His tone was gently teasing, and I knew he could see the blush that made my skin feel as if it were burning. He raised his hand; his nails were like a woman’s, long and sharp and slightly hooked. I flinched from his touch.

“Kyle,” he said. The scent of viburnum was very strong. “Do you think I intend to hurt you?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what you want.”

He laughed, and although his laugh was as beautiful as his voice, something in it disturbed me, some hint of a wolf’s howl, or of the cry of a loon. Then he was speaking again; I could not help but listen. “And here I thought I had been as transparent as glass. Kyle.” He touched my face; I could feel the heat of his fingers, and this time I did not flinch away, although I was trembling. “I want to make love to you. Will you let me?”

I did not know how to answer him; I could not imagine words either to reject or accept. As if I were reaching out to put my fingers into flame, I looked up into his face. There was no mockery there, no sign that this was some huge and elaborate joke at my expense. He was waiting for my answer, the hard lines of his face softened, his blue eyes containing nothing but warmth and something that almost seemed to be anxiety.

I said a stupid, senseless non sequitur: “No one calls me Kyle.”

But Ivo did not snort with laughter, or sigh with impatience; he did not turn and walk back out into the darkness. He said, “Then I think it’s high time someone did.” His smile was sweet and warm, like the lifting of a burden. “Kyle. Come to me.” I felt the hardness of his nails at the back of my neck as he gently pulled my head down so that his mouth could meet mine. His lips were soft, his teeth wickedly sharp behind them.

After a moment he released me, moving back a little so he could look me in the eyes. “Kyle, are you a virgin?”

Of course I was. I had never before met anyone who would look twice at me. My heart was clamoring in my chest as if I had been running, and I looked away from him.

“Beloved,” Ivo said, “there is no shame, only an undiscovered country to explore. Come.” His hands slid down gently to where my hands hung stiff and icy at my sides. The heat of his flesh was like fire. He took my hands and stepped slowly backwards, leading me step by halting step into the bedroom.

My life became bifurcated. From eight to five I was the mus eum’s Mr Booth, following the rounds of my duties as I always had, and I did not think of Ivo at all, except to remember to keep my cuffs carefully buttoned, so that the long welts left by his nails would not be noticed. And even that caution was queerly divorced from Ivo himself; it was simply something I knew I had to be careful about, without knowing or caring why.

At five, I went home and became Ivo’s Kyle. I do not know what Ivo did while I was at work; he was always there, waiting, when I returned. The apartment became filled with the scent of viburnum and the darker scent of sex. I trusted Ivo as blindly as a child; he taught me pleasure and pain and the shadowed places in-between. It ceased to matter that I was ten years or more older than he; his knowledge and experience were more than I could have gathered in three lifetimes. I asked him no questions about himself; he told me stories of his travels but nothing more personal. There was only the slender beauty of his body, the flawless marble whiteness of his skin, the pleasures which he taught me to give as well as receive.

I had always been an insomniac; now I slept only when I had to, both of us loath to lose the beauties we could share. Moreover, when I did sleep, my dreams were bad and ugly. I dreamed of humiliation and shame and guilt; words like
monstrosity
and
abomination
shouted themselves through my dreaming mind, and when I woke, my eyes would be raw with unshed tears.

After one such dream – I had lost all track of the calendar, so I do not know how long Ivo had been there, how long I had known him – I rolled over, away from the moonlight streaming between the slats of the Venetian blinds. My eyes opened as my head came down on the pillow again, and I startled back so violently I nearly fell off the bed.

Ivo was lying there, perfectly still, his face as serene as a statue’s, his eyes open, fixed, and brilliant with moonlight. He looked as if he had been lying there for hours, just watching me sleep.

“Ivo?”

His face did not change, but he said, “Kyle?” his voice as warm and caressing as ever.

“Are you . . . that is . . .” I could not articulate what was bothering me, and so fell silent. I did not know why he frightened me, lying there so still and quiet, except that he did not seem to be blinking. I realized that though I had seen Ivo close his eyes, I had never noticed him blink.

“Is all well with you, beloved? Another bad dream?” He did not move, and I could not, lying there, our faces inches apart, staring.

“Yes,” I said. I did not lie to Ivo, although I would have to anyone else. I was staring, transfixed, at the opalescent brilliance of his eyes in the moonlight.

He moved then, one hand reaching forward to caress my hip. “Do you wish to sleep again?”

All at once, out of my fear and the memories of my dreams, I blurted, “Ivo, are you all right?”

“Of course,” he said, his lips curving in a smile, although still he did not blink. “I am here with you, Kyle. How could I be otherwise?” His hand moved, and my breath caught in my throat.

I forgot my questions, forgot my fear. But as we moved closer together, the moonlight still lighting his eyes like lamps, I saw something I had never seen before, although I could not count the hours I had spent staring into Ivo’s eyes: his pupils were vertically slit, like a cat’s.

I could not think about Ivo. I discovered this only slowly, out of a nagging, angering sense that there was something I was missing, some blind spot in my mind. At the museum my thoughts would slide away from him, and I would only remember two or three hours later that I had been trying to put together the things I had observed. And then it would be another two or three hours before I remembered remembering that. At home, when Ivo was there, I could not think at all, mesmerized by his brilliant eyes, the scent of viburnum that surrounded him, the burning warmth of his skin. It was as if I had been divided in two. One part of me knew about Ivo; the other part was capable of rational thought. I could not bring the two together.

But I was more and more aware that something was wrong. In the washroom at the museum, when I rolled up my cuffs to wash my hands, I would look at the angry welts on my forearms, and I would not know how I had come by them. At home, it was part of my life that Ivo was always watching me, unblinking, the slits of his pupils expanding and contracting as a cat’s do when it considers whether or not to pounce on its prey. And although I still wanted his touch, wanted the kaleidoscopic passion that only he could give me, at the same time I was coming to fear his hands, their heat and sharpness, as I feared his mouth and the roughness of his tongue.

Then, one night, Ivo burned me. It was not anything he meant to do – that, I still believe – merely that he caught my wrist, and I screamed at his touch.

He jerked his hand away, his eyes wide. “Kyle?”

I was staring at my left wrist, at the already blistering imprint, terribly distinct, of his fingers: the index, middle and ring fingers clutching across the back of my arm, the little finger stretching down toward my elbow, the mark of his thumb resting across the vulnerable blue veins on the inside of my wrist.

I looked up at him. I had never seen fear on Ivo’s face, and I hated the way it made him look. He said, his voice barely a whisper, “Oh, Kyle, I am so sorry. Oh, my beloved, I never meant to hurt you. Here, come with me. I know what to do.”

I let him lead me to the bathroom, let him wash the burn with cold water – his hands now barely warmer than mine – let him smear it with some ointment that he got out of his overcoat, a crumpled tin tube without a label. He wrapped my arm then, carefully, lovingly, in strips torn from an old shirt of mine. I was aware, all the while, of his eyes returning again and again to my face, of the anxiety he could not conceal. Finally, when he was done, he released me and stepped back, his gaze fixed on my face with such a naked look of pleading that I could not meet his eyes.

The pain had cleared my head; at least for this moment, I could both be with Ivo and think about him. I said, “What are you?”

“Kyle, beloved, please.” He tried to smile. “I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

“What are you, Ivo?”

I saw then that he would not answer me. Before he could choose his lie, I turned and walked past him, out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, out into the living room, buttoning my shirt with stiff, trembling fingers as I went.

“Kyle?” He followed me. I realized that I could hear the click of his toenails on the parquet floor, like a dog’s. “Kyle? Where are you going? What are you doing?”

I found my shoes, my coat, my keys. “I need to think,” I said, without turning back to look at him, and I left.

I walked for hours through the empty, night-haggard streets of the city. I neither noticed nor cared where I went, and if I had happened to fall in the river, I would have been glad of it. Perhaps because it was night, I found that I could remember Ivo, could piece together isolated, stranded thoughts that I had been having and forgetting for weeks: his eyes; his nails and teeth; the fact that I had never seen him either blink or sleep; the scent of viburnum that always surrounded him; the heat that he could only imperfectly control; the way he watched me, as if I were the only thing in the world that existed; the way I had become – I flinched from the word, but I knew it for truth – addicted to him. I remembered that after the first time I had seen him, my hands had dragged down the
Demonologica
from my shelves. And I knew.

Had I, I wondered, ever not known?

I stopped at last, in one of the city’s many small parks; I sat on a bench and wept as I had not wept since I had been caned at the age of thirteen for mourning my mother. It felt as if, not only my heart, but my mind and soul and spirit were broken, lying in shattered pieces around my untied shoes. For a long time it did not seem to me as if I would ever find the strength or the courage to leave this bench, and it did not seem that there would be any point in any action I could take after I stood up. There was no point in anything.

But I knew what had to be done. I had read Wells-Burton and everything he had to say on the subject of incubi. The fact that I would rather have ripped my own heart out of my chest and left it for the crows was not relevant. I reached down with fingers that felt like dry twigs and tied my shoes; then I stood up and walked home.

Ivo was waiting in the living room. He had been crying; his eyes looked raw and hollow. “Kyle!” he said, coming toward me. “Kyle, you came—”

“You aren’t here, Ivo,” I said, hanging up my coat. “You never have been.”

He stopped where he was, his hands still outstretched, his eyes widening with horror. “Kyle, what are you talking about? Kyle, don’t you—”

“I know what you are, Ivo.
You aren’t here
.”

I walked through into the bedroom. He trailed after me. “Kyle, please, what are you saying? You know I love you. You know I’d do anything for you.”

“You aren’t here,” I said again. It was almost four o’clock. I took off my clothes, put on the pajamas I had not worn since I had invited Ivo into my apartment and my life. I dragged the covers back and lay down on the bed, on my back, as stiff and comfortless as a medieval Christ. I stared at the ceiling. I could hear Ivo crying, but he did not come near me.

We stayed that way until seven o’clock, when I got up. I showered, shaved, dressed. My burns were already healing, thanks to Ivo’s ointment, but I could see that the scars were going to remain with me for the rest of my life, as sharp and pitiless as a morgue photograph.

Ivo followed me from room to room, weeping. His control had slipped further during the night; his eyes were inhuman, without whites, the unearthly blue of marsh fire. His hair looked less like hair now, more like an animal’s rich pelt. He did not try to speak to me, but I left without making any move toward the kitchen. I could buy something to eat later, if I had to, though I could not imagine being hungry.

As I was opening the door, I said again, “You aren’t here, Ivo.”

In the museum, in the daylight, I did not remember him. I did not know why I felt so ill and strained, why, on my lunch break, I slipped down to the basement and wept for half an hour, huddled for comfort against a bad Roman copy of a Greek nude. I did not remember him until I opened my door to the scent of viburnum.