Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 22:31:07 -0400 From: Sean Williams Subject: Screwing the President Chapter 13 Screwing the President Chapter 13 "Sit up, Asa," Connor said, his eyes locked onto mine. "Please, sit up." "You should go," I said, slowly sitting up in bed. There he was in the dark room: close-cropped blond hair, polo shirt, confident and calm. His mouth was turned up into a slight smile, as usual, but his face was serious. "Just go," I said. "I know all about you guys now. You can't fool me anymore, Connor. I know you're not really a fraternity. I know what you did to Todd, and I know what you did to my roommate Rich. They're both dead. Anyone that stands in your way, you remove from the picture. People with lives and families: they get squashed. You can't pull the wool over my eyes anymore, Connor. I... I'm not blinded by lust. Not anymore." "You don't understand." "What is there to understand!" I shouted. "You're a murderer. You're a demon. You kill people." "It isn't like that." Connor calmly shook his head as he said this. He inched toward me in the bed, but I knew that he would not hurt me, so I did not back away or get up out of bed. I could not say if it was because he needed me: because his salvation, his eternal life, depended on taking over my body; or if it was because of something else. "It isn't like that," Connor repeated. "What's it like then?" I asked. "Asa... Asa, I can't believe how much you've changed." "I've changed? You're the one that's changed." I shook my head. "I remember when I first met you: a calm jock wearing a polo shirt and khakis. It was all so simple then. You blinded me. I was mesmerized. It wasn't really lust, it was something else. I wanted to be with you. I admired you. You were the president of Delta Iota Kappa and you were beautiful. It's crazy to think of it know, but I remember saying to myself: 'Wow, he's beautiful.' I wanted to be with you, Connor. Why did you have to fuck this up?" "Asa..." "Connor, you fucking ruined everything!" As I said the words, I thought to myself: "What am I saying?" "Asa, I love you," Connor said. "That isn't love," I remarked. "You need me and that's all it boils down to. Do you think I'm stupid enough to fall for your tricks, Connor? I understand everything now. James explained it to me." "James?" "James," I replied. A look of recognition suddenly flashed across Connor's face. "It doesn't matter," I continued. "Just leave. If you don't leave, I can't answer for what I'll do." "You won't hurt me," said Connor, with a sigh. His smile was gone. "The truth is, you love me just as much as I love you. Even more than that, you need me. The fact is, you need me just as much as I need you, in a different way, but you need me all the same. When you are away from me, everything changes. Stan is a distraction. He's kinda goofy, but he's loyal and you think you can trust him. In your mind, you're thinking: 'This is a guy I can trust, maybe I should give my love to him.' But you're too good for him. Even Stan realizes that. Then this James character shows up and he's hot and mysterious. Part of you thinks: 'Maybe it's James I need.' I understand it, Asa. But don't confuse things. I'm the one you really want. It's always been me and it always will be." "What are you saying?" "We're meant for each other," said Connor. "It's meant to be. My... my master... sent you to me. I have lived for almost two hundred years, it's true. The body that you see now, this handsome blond jock, I've had it for almost fifty years, but it's just a shell. You think you fell in love with the image that now sits before you, but it was really me that you fell in love with. The real me. Not the facade." "I don't understand." "You're not stupid, Asa," Connor continued. "Do you think I used black magic to make you fall in love with me? Do you think I asked Degoth to use his powers to seduce you? Do you think I have a voodoo doll at home that I keep just to ensnare and control you? You have free will, Asa. You could have turned me away that day you met me in the cafeteria. You could have told me to 'Go fuck myself' during that first Delta Iota Kappa party you went to. But..." "But I didn't," I said, finishing Connor's statement. "Right," said Connor. He placed one of his hands on top of mine. His hand was warm and I could feel his strong pulse on the back of my hand. "This is love," he said. "No magic involved. You believe that, don't you?" "Yes," I said. It had to be love. "I do." Connor reached into his pocket and, instinctively, I jumped back and assumed a defensive posture. "Don't worry," he said. "You know I'll never do anything to hurt you. Do I even need to say it?" Connor pulled out his wallet and I watched as he rifled through the compartments. Eventually, he found what he was looking for: he pulled out a thick-papered, weathered photograph. He cradled it in his hands, smiling. "That's me," he said, as he handed it to me. "It's not as dramatic as Todd's birth certificate, but it's something, right?" I reached for the photograph and calmly took the delicate picture into my hands. Connor did not look at me, but I occasionally glanced up at him and saw that he was quiet, almost penitent, his face almost begging me for absolution, and I understood how and why I had fallen in love with him. I looked down at the picture and saw a boy of fifteen with a full head of wavy blond hair and Connor's same large and expressive eyes. His mouth was set in a firm line and his hands rested calmly in his lap. He wore a thick woolen suit and he sat on a stool, alone, in front of a plain background, probably just the wooden wall of the photographer's studio. The picture was more shades of yellow than black and white and I knew that it must have come from the first half of the nineteenth century. "That's me," Connor repeated. I smiled timidly and said, "it looks like you were a blond back then, too." "Yeah, I was," Connor affirmed, nodding. "I've always been a blond, through all of my incarnations. I guess I always liked blonds, until I met you. You're perfect, Asa. I could not have imagined someone like you if I tried." "Did you grow up on a farm?" I asked. "This... former you?" "Yes," Connor replied. "I grew up on a farm just north of the Ohio River. That area is all built up now, I drove over there to check it out last year, but it was rolling hills, and cattle ranches when I lived there. The funny thing is, I was born and raised not far from where Todd was raised, in Kentucky. He's a little younger than me, though. At least he was...." "How many... how many of you have there been?" I asked, afraid to look up into Connor's face: afraid of the answer. "Besides my original body... there have been three others," Connor replied. "Usually a body lasts about fifty years, but sometimes we have to change sooner." "I can't believe we're talking about this," I said. I sighed, heavy. "I'm sorry, Asa. Let's talk about something else." "No," I said. "Let's not stop there. Let's just flush the whole thing out into the open! You need a new body. I get it. You're due for a new one, you're fifty years is up, and that's why you need me." "It isn't like that, Asa," said Connor. "All of us are one person. Those that I join with don't just disappear forever. They become a part of me. They remain a part of me. I remember their first kiss, the first time their parents told them they loved them, the anxiety when they hopped in the car and drove with their parents to college for the first time. It doesn't just disappear. It's still with me. Don't you get it? When we become one, you won't go away, Asa. In fact, you're so strong... who you are is so powerful that it would probably be you that takes over me. Do you get that? Do you understand? We become joined and you... you're so incredible that you would probably win out in the end. You're not just a body for me to take over, Asa. If we joined, you would become the dominant personality in our joined state. I want nothing better than that. I want to spend forever with you, Asa. I love you that much. You cannot even fathom the depths of what I feel for you. I know that it isn't possible for you to truly understand what any of this means, you haven't experienced it yet, but one day we will be as one and it will be more incredible than you can ever imagine." "No I cannot understand that." "But you will," said Connor. I looked down at the photograph again. Though the features of the boy were somewhat different than the handsome man that sat before me - the boy was slighter and more delicate in appearance, like people were back then, than Connor was now - but there was no mistaking that it was the same person. The spirit was the same. I imagined what Connor must have been like as a boy growing on an Ohio farm in the early 1800s: milking the cows, carrying the meat to market in an ox-drawn cart, celebrating Thanksgiving in a one bedroom house with his brothers and his parents. When you meet someone far away from where they come from, it's easy to form a picture - a mental image of them - based on what stands before you, but when you get a glimpse of who they were, and how they came to be what they are now, everything changed. With that picture, I got a glimpse of who Connor was. With just a simple old photograph, I figured out how he came to be who he was, the president of my school's chapter of Delta Iota Kappa, and I had a clear understanding of where the love I felt for him had come from. Connor was right, it was more than simple seduction. "I don't know if I'll ever understand it," I said, looking up at Connor. "You will, Asa. When we are joined, you will understand everything." I nodded. "When?" I asked. "Tomorrow," said Connor. Those were the last words of his that day, which I remember. The next thing I would recall would be waking up and seeing an angry pair, Stan and James, standing over me. But before that, before I fell asleep, Connor took back his picture and put it in his wallet. He bent over me and pulled my face gently towards his. I looked up into his blue eyes and he kissed me: the softest, and yet the most intimate kiss that I had ever experienced up to that time. I understood it all in that moment. I needed love: I had been looking for it for as long as I could remember, and only Connor could give me the love that I needed. Only he could love me in the way that I needed to be loved. Stan couldn't do it, and James certainly didn't have what I needed. But Connor did: those expressive eyes that he had never lost in nearly two hundred years of life, in four different bodies, told me that he was the one that I would have spent my whole life searching for, if chance had not thrown us together, on this middle-of-nowhere college campus. Connor thought that the heavens had sent me to him, but I thought then that he had been sent to me. I could have spent my life searching for him. It was Connor. Whatever he wanted of me, I would give. In that moment, Stan and James, and all of their plans, were forgotten. I would meet Connor at the Delta Iota Kappa house tomorrow and we would finally become one. His spirit would enter my body and an incredible new beginning lay in store for us. If James and Stan did not understand it, well they would just have to be removed from the picture altogether. [TO BE CONTINUED] [Usual disclaimer: do not read if you are underage, or reading this type of material is illegal in your state, province or territory. We're almost done, guys! Thanks for the support!] [COPYRIGHT 2011]