Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 15:17:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Cillian Mayfair Subject: Magnus part 4 I pulled him down and he came, reluctantly at first, but he came nonetheless, following the pull of my arm towards a recumbence that seemed to have been far too delayed. My head touched a pillow and I felt his forehead graze my own as the law of momentum suddenly made itself known to us. I thought of many things then, of happiness most of all, perhaps of completion, a resolution and a kind of satisfaction. But once we lay as we did, nothing was as it should have been. He breathed heavily, and I felt his warmth on my throat, a delicious sensation that makes one wonder why there aren't any real vampires in the world. Then he moved away. That should not have happened. He moved to his usual position beside me and together we gazed at the ceiling, connected by the warm lengths of our bodies. We lay together, and no sound was made aside from that gentle reminder of his presence, his breath. He felt sad. Although I could not see him, I felt it in the way his shoulders lacked their usual strength. I did not understand what was happening. My expectations had been entirely different from the actual course of events. I had foreseen surrender, the inevitable peace that comes with the knowledge that the walls of the fortress, built upon foundations of normative maya have been breached, and death is now imminent. Instead of razing my defences and conquering a dubious flag of freedom, he had crept in through a side door, cloaked in shadow and un-followed by the marauding hordes I had expected to give myself over to. And now, he lay silent, just breathing, beside me. Maybe I should have been happy then, accepting what I had longed for, his presence and his touch, completely natural as they were to me. We had after all, not been like this for a long time. I should have tasted sweet contentment, but there was a bitter taste in my mouth and a certain disappointment, like an almond that smells deceives by appearance but upon consumption unleashes the poison it conceals so well. I counted the shadows of all the leaves that danced on my ceiling through the window. I counted them one, and again, but my estimates each time differed. The hypnotic dance of branches confused my results, and I decided I had had enough of their teasing tango. I turned towards him, and for one brief moment I was unsure of why I had done even that, for I found myself staring at a stranger. He did not look like a friend to me. He looked more like a messenger, a messenger who was biding his time before the time came to reveal the ill news he had brought. I felt a dull ache at my temples that soon grew into a tireless fire. My brow furrowed of its own volition and a rust coloured rage clouded my vision till he looked simply like an old photograph. Sepia and dead, perhaps loved once, even treasured by many, none of whom now lived. A memory lost because none lived that remembered it. Like the Mona-Lisa perhaps, well known to the artist, but lost to the present in the most obvious of ways. Sitting Regally behind a glass curtain, secretive and silent except for the hint of a smile that infuriated those that attempted to decipher it. He looked towards me. His head did not move, but gray eyes turned in my direction. For once, I could see nothing in them. Once having thought them clear, transparent, I could now only think of clouds at their sight; Dark clouds, which even if they passed overhead, still bore the promise of a storm in some far-off land. I felt blind for my inability to decipher their meaning, which served only to enrage me. My mind, incapable of resisting the heat that radiated from my skin, caught the blaze as well. My colour must have changed, but I doubt it was noticeable to him since my face already bore a warm hue from the passionate kisses of Remy. But maybe he knew me too well, or maybe it was true, as he said, that my eyes turned a deeper blue when became angry. Just as I tried to quiet my mind, and say something, anything, as long as it was rational, he spoke. "How is Bianca?" he asked me, with an accent that reminded me of happier days. I do not know what happened to me then. It was nothing I had ever felt before. A collision perhaps, of two ideas that had until that moment lived far apart, unknown to one another. His question brought her to my mind. It brought an image of emerald eyes and flowing red silk, of incorrigible curls and the irresistible lifting of a single eyebrow in question. I felt lost suddenly, and tired. I felt as if were swimming in an open ocean, with two shores in sight, both equally apart, both beguiling, though in very different ways. One swam with the waves of pliant palm leaves and white sand, while the other was darker, populated by ancient bristlecone pines, their elder branches forming and impenetrable mesh, but alight somehow, as if from within, speaking of a vehement fire that burned perennially in the central clearing. I did not know where I belonged. Both possibilities were alluring, the diametric opposition of safety and regularity to arcane obscurity. He had conjured a beautiful witch of whom I was exceedingly fond and forced me to hate her for the decision she forced me to make. In summoning her to mind, he had placed her as an obstacle between me and the source of that brilliance that made the solidity of those branches come alive in a graceful dance. It was a secret that I was desperate to learn, yet he would not let me discover it for my fear of losing myself in a vast unknown forest never perhaps to return to brighter shores. He had desecrated her. Something made me move, quicker perhaps and with more will that I had ever before, and I clenched his shoulders and violently shook him from his position. The bed moved with the force of this assault and the scraping of its wooden feet against the floor brought fear into his eyes. Maybe it was just surprise but in any case, he had not expected this. "Why are you here? Why the fuck are you here?" I screamed. He calmed once more, recovered rapidly from the momentary terror that had been inflicted upon him and grasped my arms, trying to pull them off himself. But we were roughly equals in strength, and I had the favour of gravity. His beautiful face convoluted into an expression that lived somewhere between pain, blood thirst and despair. He ceased his struggle, retiring into a cold calm, loyally accompanied by silence. I did not move. I still clenched him, ready to avenge the pain he had caused me. The blood from my hand staining his shirt reminded me of my own wound, and suddenly I was felt a younger pain. It was if my mind had remembered to register it only upon being presented with irrefutable evidence of its existence. My hold on him faltered for a second, and I realized almost immediately that that had been a mistake. But it turned out to be nothing. He did nothing. He did not move. He stayed as he was, content perhaps, with a sad smile on his face now that promised me he knew something that I did not. "You don't understand," he whispered almost malevolently, "You never have, and you never will." "Then make me understand. I am sick of not understanding. I am sick of you never telling me. What is there to understand?" "I can't," he turned his head to a side, and I saw a lone tear flow down his face. "You will tell me." I said simply, not intending to sound as cold as I did, but precisely as forceful. I had suddenly realized the horror of the situation. He was my friend, he was crying, and he knew something he would not tell me. I realised that the last of my reserves of strength had been exhausted, and I felt my arms abandon me. I collapsed onto him, face buried into his chest, and for the first time, in many years, I wept as though my tears would as well abandon me on the morrow. I wept out of helplessness, out of need, or perhaps simply because it had been too long. We stayed thus positioned for what seemed like many, many years. It was probably all the cognac, but I felt I had finally reached a destination of sorts. The kind of feeling one gets when one steps on to solid land after having rolled with the sea for months, when one graduates, or gets married, or kisses for the first time the one he loves. It was moment out of time, apart from the usual rambling motion of that stream that seems to meander without ultimate purpose. It was a little pond to the side, where seconds such as these come to live, safe from the current that threatens to sweep them away to unknown shores. I could feel a beat within him, burning faster than seemed safe. I felt hands grasp my head, entwining themselves into my hair and pulling upwards till the connection that let me hear his blood course through him was broken. He laid me beside him, gently as if I were newly born. My despair as being thus distanced did not last long, for he moved towards me, placing himself above myself. He sat for a moment, seemingly pendulous, supported by his knees so that I did not feel his weight but then lowered himself onto me, lying similarly upon me as I had upon him. I felt weak, my body having withdrawn its support of my mind. Covering me, he was a cage, gold and gilded within which I felt the freedom of just swimming, and thereby of understanding the pleasure of ambivalence. I wished that it would last forever, that little piece of time, that sensation that made Archimedes yell Eureka as if nothing else in the world mattered. Magnus, with all his southern years evolved into a specimen of unforgiving splendour, atop my silk-clad frame, burning with an intensity I had not known ever since that first time I had touched a girl's breast, amazed at the wonder that alien experience is capable of bringing. His breathing changed from rapid gasps to more elongated and sensual caresses, warming my face as they lovingly went their way to rejoin the tangible atmosphere. I could smell him. I could reach past the vodka and smell his true self, and it was like chocolate and saffron, like newly rained upon streets and freshly cut grass, like gasoline and hot molten tar. And deep down, buried within that cascade of fragrances, I could hear the beating heart, pumping old world blood through his veins, simultaneously urging him on and holding him back from something, as if hovering between the hated familiarity of well know terrain, and the jump that led across the precipice into undiscovered lands. I could sense these things coursing through his mind for I too had felt them. I too had known the agony of not recognizing that which is most yearned for when it is finally within grasp. And then, perhaps for selfish reason or out of love, pity, or overpowering need. I held his face in hands and slowly brought it down to mine. We lay there, our lips barely touching, each lacking the courage to make the move that would transform us into something different, something forbidden and unbelievably, sinfully delicious. He leaned his forehead against mine and I could feel a tear from his closed eyes fall gently upon my cheek and make its way down to my mouth, where it was received and savoured. I had never known him to cry till tonight. Yes, he was from the south, and spoke French, and was emotional, but he did not cry. Magnus did not cry. I became afraid. Instead of the kiss I had planned to give him, I pulled his face down and kissed his forehead. But I found I could not stop. I kissed it again, and again, and again, till there was not an inch I had left unadorned. I moved on to his hair, which spilled like water onto my face. I kissed each strand and it smelled vaguely of spearmint. The urgency within me began to rise once more, and I clenched his hair with both hands, jerking his face upwards and baring his neck. He made a sound that was a perfect blend of pain and satisfaction. I would have kissed his neck, but something stopped me. I don't know. I got the strong feeling that he was not mine for the taking. He was not just some dumb New York, Paris Hilton look-alike whore, he was Magnus, my friend, whom I loved, who often said things in another language without meaning to. So I stopped, unsure of what I was doing. I felt light-headed. I slid out from beneath him and attempted to stand, to clear my head. I wished Remy would go away, he had overstayed his welcome. I did not need him right now. I needed a clear head, and able limbs. If not, I was lost. As I began to move away from the bed, I felt arms, whose strength exceeded my wildest estimation, take hold of me and pull me back, with an uncharacteristic violence. I fell onto the bed sideways, startled and unsure of the what, how and why of it all. But the sight that awaited me was one that quickly brushed aside any such worries. Magnus knelt over me, an expression of pure rage on his face. His brow furrowed into a hundred folds and his gray eyes agleam with the fire of retribution. As if lay there and looked into his eyes, he seemed so very different from the bearer of my fevered kisses. I saw his arm raise itself as if preparing for an assault, and it was only once it was too late that I realized that assault was meant for me. His hand came crashing down into the side of my face and for a moment my vision clouded with red, and all the little red riding hood stories came back to me. My mind shrieked for my body to run, to escape, to hide from this onslaught. It assured me that there was more to come and that survival demanded evasive action in the absence of my ability to retaliate owing to inebriation. My body refused to move however and in a very strange way, it felt good. It felt intimate and special. Just him and I, and no one else. Not the walls, not the television, not Bianca, just us. Magnus, and I. I didn't care at that point if he killed me, as along as it was him that did it. But soon there were no more blows and finally when I opened my eyes I saw him looking down at me with a pained expression of disbelief. "Don't stop." I said. "It's all right. It's all right." And then, he began to cry. Silent tears that created a dull explosion as they landed on my face. "Don't you understand Vincent? Do you really not know?" He said. I wanted to tell him that I did understand. That I understood perfect well, but it was just that I had not been able to believe that which I knew. But I could say nothing. I just looked at him, as his tears fell in an uneven drizzle all over my bestridden form. "Don't you know by now? You belong to me. You are mine. All mine. You can't belong to someone else. You can't even belong to yourself, You're mine Vincent. You're mine because I love you. I love you more than I love myself, and I can't bear the thought of you leaving me, not even for her. I know you love her Vincent, but I refuse to believe that. If you love her, you'll leave me. Don't you see?" I lay still for a while trying to accommodate myself into this new world that had been created with but a few forbidden sentences. The two extremes of emotion that arose in me were those of anger and of utter pliability. Finally the latter won out and my heart melted for him. He had said exactly the right thing, known exactly how to break through my defences, and for the first time I realized that I loved him as well. I finally understood why every time I had spoken of him Bianca's eyes had clouded over with a deep insecurity. I realized that what he way saying was true. I enjoyed the pain in the side of my face, not because I was masochistic, but because it was the pain that had made me see the truth in its entire magnificent nakedness sitting right before me, plainly visible to those who would but look closer. I was still in the process of adjustment brought on by this unearthing, letting the sudden burst of enlightenment wash over me when I saw Magnus' face darken one last time. But it was not anger that exhibited itself this time, nor frustration at my blindness, but fear. He was afraid. He had hit me, and the southern gentleman in him was mortified. He started to get up, but I held him back. He fought my hands to be free of them. My hands were chains that bound him to the crime scene, but I would not let him go. And so, thus entangled in that very place of his dishonourable crime, as he thought it to be, in that bed of shame, love and realisation, he fell, finally exhausted upon me as I whispered into his ear, "I know, mon chere." And then, I heard a familiar noise once more. The turning of a silver key in my not quite so silver lock. The door slowly creaked open, trying to be quiet but failing by just far enough to give itself away. The noise of a heeled shoe on the hardwood floor hit my ears like an echoing gunshot. The breeze that had been patiently waiting to be let in swayed gently towards the open window, carrying with it a familiar scent; of emerald eyes and incorrigible curls. Then the door closed, not quite as noisily as it had opened and the footfall made its way through the adjoining hallway towards Magnus and I, expecting undoubtedly just one of us.