The Angel of Pie Jesu 40

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The Angel of Pie Jesu.

By John T. S. Teller.

Part 40.

Book two: Journey of the Coin.

Gareth.

It's almost five-thirty in the afternoon and the darkness is all around us after I've turned off Bundesstrasse 1 into the Birkenstein area. We go deeper into the place, near the railway line; and finally into the street where Raul lived. I park the car and look up through the trees to the old prefabricated building that was his home. There are lights on in the place. It looks foreboding... not a good place for a fourteen year old boy to be, and for the first time since we began this weird journey, I speak to Aleric. "Well?" I expect another steely glare, but he gives me a lovely smile. That shocks me more than if he had looked daggers at me. What the fuck is going on? But I don't ask him that... instead, I ask, "What now, Aleric Hahn?"

"Now we go in."

I look up at the place, and then back at him. "It looks as though somebody is at home."

He shrugs his shoulders and unbuckles his seatbelt. "So we knock on the door."

"It could be full of undesirables; drug addicts; people who don't give a shit."

"They won't harm me. Have you got a flashlight?"

I shake my head, not believing this stupid shit coming out of his mouth. My common sense is telling me to start the car and get him out of here, but my instinct tells me it would be completely the wrong thing to do. But I've no intention of walking into this place without protection. That's why, after we've got out of the car and put on our overcoats, I open the glove compartment, take out a small flashlight and give it to him, press a hidden button, and when the secret shelf drops down from the top of the recess, I remove a HK USP .45 compact handgun and slip it into my inside pocket without letting Aleric see what I'm doing. Then we walk side by side up to the shack.

I knock on the door. We wait awhile. No one answers. I bang on the door. After a short time, I hear somebody say, "Who is it?"

"A friend of Raul's. He used to live here."

The door opens slightly, and then it opens fully, and I'm relieved that I'm looking at Raul's friend, a half-stoned Dominik.

He grins at me. "Hey man... why are you here?"

It's stupid I know, but I really don't know why I'm here. It wasn't my decision to come, and I've no more idea than Dominik why I'm here, so I turn to Aleric, and ask, "Why are we here?"

"Can we have a look around Raul's studio, please?" a timid, polite, fourteen year old boy asks.

I look at Aleric and wonder where the commanding little bastard fourteen year old has gone, but all I see is my beautiful boy in all his supreme glory. He's irresistible, and Dominik steps back and jerks a thumb at us to go in.

There are another three people in the house; another male and two females. The females look like sisters... stoned sisters, on the filthy sofa, half-dressed and both wearing dirty, horizontal striped tights, hair in dreadlocks, which would have made them look like men if it wasn't for the short skirts they're wearing, and I know it wasn't so long ago that they injected. The other guy is comotose, next to them... out to the world, slobber running from a corner of his mouth and down his chin. But apart from the human detritus, the place does look a little less cluttered than the last time we were here. The table is half full of shit and not full to overflowing. Female influence? Raul never seemed to have any.

********** ********** ********** *********** **********

Aleric.

It was over. Raul had swallowed my semen and licked my pinkler completely clean. Then he said something that I took no notice of at the time. One day you'll need me again, – he jerked his head up towards the ceiling – and you'll find me up there. I thought he meant I should think about him in a spiritual way – up there being in another dimension from earthly things. But that wasn't what he meant. Only today, after we began the journey back from the Wannsee and I was thinking that I wanted Gareth to steer the car into a bridge and kill us both did I understand. I was almost at the point where I was ready to grab the steering wheel and steer us into a bridge when I felt it. It wasn't a voice... it was a vision from within the painting, and I was looking out at Raul sucking me off. I'd got hold of his dreadlocks and I was banging my pinkler into him. I looked up into nothingness, but it wasn't nothingness. Above me was a dirty ceiling. It should have been white but was a dirty yellow, and in the centre of the dirty yellow ceiling was a dirty yellow trapdoor, almost black around the edges where the smoke had seeped up and through. Up There. And when we go into Raul's studio and switch on the light, I look up at Up There. It looks exactly as I saw it.

I take the flashlight from my coat pocket and point it at Up There. Then I look at my Beautiful Man. "I need to go into the attic."

I expect him to argue, but he doesn't. Instead, he casts aside the stuff that's lying everywhere, drags a chest of drawers from the side of the room to underneath the trapdoor, helps me to stand on it, holds my legs while I push the trapdoor open, puts his hands under my shoes when I grab the sides of the aperture, and pushes me into the attic.

I was expecting the place to be full of rubbish, but there's nothing up here except one thing: a small, black tin box with worn gold lines around the edges and an ornate little handle on the top of it. It looks like a money box without a slot, with a keyhole on the front of it. I pick it up and shake it. It's not heavy, but it's not empty either. Something is in it. I go back to the aperture and sit on the edge. I feel Gareth's hands under my feet, so I lower myself back onto the chest of drawers and then get onto the floor. Gareth dusts me down. I expect him to ask me what's in the tin box, but he doesn't do that either. All he says is, "Have you got what you came for?"

"Yes. Let's see if we can find a bag to put some of Raul's paints in."

Gareth walks out of the room and is back in no time, holding a large, brown paper bag. He holds it up. "Is this big enough?" I nod, so he gathers together as many as the tubes of paint as he can, and some brushes, and puts them in the bag. He points to the box. "Give me that." I shake my head. He hisses, "Give it to me! I don't want them to see it!" I understand. They'll think it's full of money. So I give it to him and he tucks it down into the paper bag and puts more paints and paintbrushes over the top of it. Then he stares at me. "Is that it? Have you finished?"

I nod, so he puts a hand on my shoulder and leads me from the room.

Dominik looks puzzled when we walk from the room holding the bag, and he asks, "What you got there man?"

Gareth just grins at him and then places the bag on the half empty table. "Nothing. Just some paints and brushes that Aleric said he needed to remember Raul. How are you for cash?"

A big grin crosses Dominik's face. "I could always use some."

Gareth pulls his wallet out and throws four, fifty Euro notes onto the table. Then he looks at Dominik, and says, "Thanks for everything you did, Dominik. I won't forget you."

"I'll see you out," says Dominik.

Gareth puts up a flat hand. "No need. I know my way out. Take care." And he leads us out of the ramshackle hovel and back into the safe haven of the Bentley where he places the paper bag on my knee after I've buckled up. Then he looks at me. "Home?"

I stare into his eyes for a long time, and I ask, "Will you go to church with me?"

Gareth's eyes narrow, and suddenly I'm scared. He stares at me for a long time, his eyes glinting between the slits of his eyelids from the illumination of the interior light, studying me, and then he reaches into his coat and pulls out a handgun, opens the glove compartment and slips it into a slot specially designed for it at the top of the compartment. He slams it shut, and then closes the glove compartment. Then he looks at me and says bitterly, "No. Not tonight. I'm meeting Kurt tonight for a drink."

I'm meeting Kurt tonight for a drink. I feel as if a dagger has been plunged into my heart when he spits out the words, and I'm also angry. But not as angry as Gareth is. He switches off the interior light, starts the car, and the tyres screech when he pulls away, and I'm thinking he should have been a Formula 1 racing driver when he takes us home.

Home. He presses the gate control remote before we reach the apartment and the gates are almost fully open when we reach them. He pulls into the courtyard and stops the car. I've got one, but because he's so angry and doesn't want to ask me anything, he takes out his wallet and gives me a key-card to the apartment. "I'll be back later."

I look at him. "Aren't you going to get changed?"

He shakes his head. "I'll be back later."

I get out of the car with the paper bag and he reverses and pulls out onto the road. The tyres screech again, and he's gone. I put the paper bag on the floor, take out my phone, and ring Kurt. When he answers it, I ask him, "Are you meeting Gareth tonight?"

"No sweetheart. We've got dinner guests tonight. What's the problem?"

I don't answer him, and break the call. I pick up the bag, go into the apartment block, and am just getting into the lift when the phone rings. It's Kurt. I answer it. He asks, "Are you alright?"

"Yes. It's okay. He's just gone for a drink. I thought he might be going with you."

"Is he in one of his moods?"

"Yes."

"Do you need me?"

"No. I'll be fine. Enjoy your dinner, Kurt."

"Ring me if you need me."

"I will."

**********

Everybody is in the kitchen, eating, when I go into the apartment. I yell to them that I'm back, and then go and put the paper bag in the bedroom, by the painting. I go into the room Gottwin and I share, take off my soiled clothes, take a long shower, and dress in clean underpants and fresh jeans and a clean tee-shirt. Then I go to the kitchen, and ask, "Is there plenty to go round? I'm starving."

Mum grins at me. "Where's Gareth?"

"Oh... he's just gone to meet Kurt about something. They'll probably go for a drink after. He'll be back later."

**********

Back later. It's much later; almost one in the morning when I hear him come home when everybody has gone to bed to prepare for Dad going to see the surgeon in the morning. I'm expecting him to be as drunk as a skunk when he comes into the bedroom where I'm lying in bed with the lights dimmed, but he's not. He's stone cold sober. I can tell by the way he's doing things. He does glance at me and gives me a half smile, which I return, but that's it. I watch him go into his wardrobe and take out a clean pair of boxers, and then he goes to the bathroom. I hear the shower going, and then stop. He's a while before he comes back to the bedroom wearing only his boxers. He's not dried his hair with a dryer because I can see it's still damp, and he's slicked it back. He looks like an American gangster from the 1930's. And he hasn't trimmed his designer stubble either, which makes him even more gangsterish.

He comes round the bed and gets in, picks up the light control and turns the lights almost off. He doesn't like to sleep in complete darkness, and usually he leaves it lighter than it is now. But there's a reason why he's done it... he doesn't want us to be able to see each other properly. Either he doesn't want to see me, or he doesn't want me to see him. I'm lying on my side, facing him. In the very dim light I can make out his profile. His eyes are open and he's staring at the ceiling. I don't know what to do. I want to go to him, but I'm not sure what reaction I'll get. I want to say something, but I'm afraid of what he might say to me, so I just lie there and look at him.

I can see his eyelids blinking, and then his hand comes out to me, searching for mine. I take it and hold it. He grips mine tightly. I try to move towards him, but his arm is like steel; unbending, and I can't get near him. He wants to hold me, but he doesn't want me near him, so I just sob and let the tears flow, hating myself for hurting the man who loves me so much... until tiredness takes me out of my utter misery.

********** ********** ********** ********** **********

Gretel.

Monday morning. Three hours we've been at the hospital. As soon as we arrived the surgeon was there to greet us. Gareth isn't with us. At breakfast he said it was a family thing and that he would be at the office if we needed him. He may be right, but that probably isn't the whole reason he's not here. They've been falling out again. You could cut the atmosphere between him and Aleric with a knife this morning. When Aleric came back from wherever they'd been and sat down to eat, I knew something was wrong. Oh... he's just gone to meet Kurt about something. They'll probably go for a drink after. He'll be back later. It was all too easy. He was acting like a woman who'd been married for twenty years, and that's the last thing he is. He's a possessive little monkey, and if Gareth is out of his sight for five minutes, he's looking for him. Now, while he's sitting on the long couch opposite, playing on his Gameboy with Gottwin, he's away with the fairies. I really should be trying to sort things with him, but today isn't about my selfish little man, it's about my Ralf. We haven't seen him since they wheeled him off at nine o'clock this morning. I'm just beginning to get really worried when a pleasant nurse comes to me, and says, "Frau Hahn. Will you come with me please? Herr Neumann would like to see you in his office with your husband." She looks at the boys. "Your Mum won't be long."

We walk along a few corridors together, chatting about my boys, and then she stops at a door and knocks on it. I hear a voice telling us to enter, and I'm escorted into a room where Ralf is seated in his wheelchair nearest me, and seated on the other side of a large desk covered in papers and large brown envelopes is Herr Neumann, a small man with a greying moustache, probably in his late fifties, smiling and gesturing for me to take a seat next to Ralf. I know by the smirk on Ralf's face that I'm about to hear not bad news.

Herr Neumann has got a nice, quiet, cultured voice when he says, "We've done a CT Scan, Frau Hahn, and some other tests, and although I can promise you nothing, I do think we have a decent chance of repairing some of the damage to your husband's back."

I stare at him. "Some of the damage?"

He gives me a lovely smile. "I don't want to go any further than that, and I want you to promise me that you won't build your hopes up! Repairing damaged backs is not an exact science. I need to do a lot more tests, and I need to keep Herr Hahn in hospital for a few days to do them. He tells me that may not be convenient because of your boys. He says that I'm to have a word with you."

Ralf chuckles. "She's the real boss."

I flip Ralf's arm. "Since when? Since when have you ever done anything I tell you?" I look at Herr Neumann, and smile. "Of course he can stay in hospital. That's if he wants to stay when he knows he can't smoke his smelly pipe."

Herr Neumann chuckles, and shakes his head. "No smoking smelly pipes in here I'm afraid. I smoke a pipe myself, and even I can't smoke in here."

I look at Ralf again. "You'll need some things if you're staying." I look at Herr Neumann. "Is he coming in now?"

He nods. "Right away. I want to do some more tests this afternoon. I may even operate later in the week. How will that upset your routine with the boys? I believe you're staying with Herr Rhys-Jones?"

I nod. "We'll have to sort things with him. He'll be getting fed up with us."

Herr Neumann chuckles again. "I'll leave you to sort the domestic arrangements. I'll just look after your man for you."

Your man. I look right into Herr Neumann's eyes, and I know he's got my family worked out. So I smile at him, and say, "I'll leave him in your safe hands, Herr Neumann, and sort out the domestic side. The boys will just have to miss a few more days of school."

"They'll probably enjoy that. And you can sort out the furnishing and fittings to that house by the Wannsee that Herr Hahn tells me you're buying. I know the one he's referring to. It's certainly big enough for you. Herr M'tumba lived there with his wife. They're retired now and have gone back to Kenya. I don't live too far from it myself. If we can get him back on his feet, you can invite my wife and I out for a day's sailing."

I smile at him, and nod. "If you can work the miracle, you'll always be welcome."

"And if I can't?"

"Then you can come and spend a few hours together smoking your smelly pipes."

Herr Neumann laughs. "It's a deal." He stands up and comes round the desk. "Why don't you all go to the restaurant and have some lunch? Then bring him back to me afterwards. Just push him into reception and leave him to me. After he's been outside and had a last smoke of his smelly pipe, of course."

********** ********** *********** ********** **********

Gareth.

Aleric's voice is quiet and reserved when I answer the phone. "Hi," he says, "I just wanted you to know that the doctor is keeping Dad in, and he might even do the operation later this week."

Aleric doesn't know it, but Frank Neumann has already phoned me with the good news. He's probably told me far more than Aleric and his family know, but I can't let on that I know, and that I'm thrilled with what he's told me. Despite what's going on with me and Aleric, the news that Frank thinks he can get Ralf back on his feet and walking within six months is the most fantastic news I've had for goodness knows how long. So I keep my voice measured when I say. "That's good. What do your Mum and Dad think about it?"

"I'm not sure. We're just going to have something to eat in the restaurant and talk about it."

"Good. Well, I have some more news for you to pass on to them. The house they like is on hold. You'll want to look at it properly before you make your minds up, but it's yours if you want it. I have someone in the office with me now. I'll speak to you later."

"Okay. I'll speak to you later."

I break the call and sit back in my office chair. Then I ring Kurt and ask if he's busy. He says he is, but he agrees to meet me in an hour at his place, but I'm to bring a pizza or he won't. Typical Kurt. He knows there's something wrong, but he has to make a joke to take the sting out of whatever is to come. Whatever is to come. I don't think Aleric missed out on my use of the word, `yours' when I was talking about the house at Wannsee. I've pretty much made up my mind that I need to put some space between us, and maybe the best way to do that is to have him go and live with his parents.

********** ********** ********** ********** **********

Aleric.

I feel sick... physically sick as I stare through the side window of the Transporter as Gunther drives us back to the apartment. It took every bit of my willpower not to be unhappy when we were eating in the restaurant and talking about what's going to happen to Dad. But I shouldn't have tried to eat half the meal I had. I was gagging when I was eating it, but now it's coming back, and I yell to Gunther to stop at the side of the road because I feel sick. He pulls over, I slide the side door open and spew onto the pavement. Then I stand there retching while Mum has her arm around me. She wipes my mouth with her handkerchief, and wipes my forehead. Then she says, "You're as pale as death. Are you not feeling well?"

I shake my head, and then I feel the bile rising again, and again I retch, and I retch until my tummy is hurting and nothing is coming out of me. Eventually it stops and Mum bundles me back into the Transporter and sits on a double seat with me with her arm around me while I'm thinking about the word Gareth used.

YOURS. It's YOURS if you want it. Not Mum's and Dad's. YOURS! He was including me with Mum and Dad. It was his way of telling me that he's sending me back home. He doesn't want me anymore. Well, he might want me, but after what happened yesterday, he probably can't take any more of what I'm doing to him.

When we get into the apartment, Mum says, "Go and lie down on the bed. I'll bring you some water to wet your mouth. You don't want anything else for at least two hours if you've got a tummy bug. It's probably something you've eaten. A bug you've picked up." She goes into the kitchen and I go to the bedroom. Not Gareth's bedroom, our bedroom; Gottwin's and my bedroom, and lie on my bed. When Mum comes in, she gives me a strange look. "I went to the other bedroom. I thought you would be in there. Sit up and let me wet your tongue. I've melted a candy in some hot water and cooled it down. It's nice and sweet and will help get rid of the nasty taste in your mouth."

********** *********** ********** *********** ***********

Kurt.

Gareth is drinking a Martini with ice and lemon. That alone tells me that he's lost his marbles. In all the years I've known him I've never seen him drink a Martini with ice and lemon. In front of him is his untouched half of the pepperoni pizza he brought. Then he does something he only does when he's extremely angry or really upset. He asks me for a cigarette. I don't argue... I just light one and pass it to him across the dining table. He takes in a deep drag and inhales. Then he stubs the cigarette out in the almost full ash tray. He's said hardly a thing since he arrived, but now is my chance to begin the interrogation. "I didn't know you smoked regularly."

"I don't."

"You must smoke regularly. You got that smoke down you like an expert."

He stares at the uneaten pizza. "I smoked twenty last night. I'm used to the fucking things."

"What's he been up to this time?"

"He's gone fucking crazy."

"Tell me about it."

**********

Twenty minutes later I ask Gareth, "Where did you get the gun from?"

He stares at me. "I've always had one."

"Why?"

"To protect the people nearest and dearest to me."

"Who are they?"

He sneers. "Me mostly." Then his face softens. "You, and now the fucking lunatic."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, his comment about Aleric makes me chuckle. "He's certainly that. I'm glad it's you living with him and not me. You're not serious about sending him back to his parents, are you?"

"Yes."

"You're fucking kidding yourself. He's only got to click his fingers and you'll come a-running to him."

I've touched a really raw nerve, because Gareth slams his fist onto the table so hard that the pizza flies off his plate and both the pizza and the plate crash to the floor, shattering one of my nice plates. I stare at him. "That's twenty Euros you owe me. I hope I can still get that pattern or you'll have ruined my whole set."

Gareth slams his head onto the table... and I don't try to stop him. The rage has to come out some way and it's best done with me than anyone else. I know why he's doing it... because he knows I'm right. There's only one way Gareth can change the situation, and him telling me about the gun he has in his car has alarmed me. In fact I'm almost sure that it could have been used last night when he was just driving around wondering what to do. I'm amazed that he didn't turn to drink. Maybe it would have been better had he done just that. It's what he normally does when he's pissed off. Another thing that's worrying me is that he never contacted me last night. More than anything I'm worried about that. The only saving grace is that he's done it now. And now he's stopped banging his head on the table and is sobbing, I know it's time for some Kurt loving, but before I give him some of that, I tell him, "If you get caught with a gun in Germany, you'll go to jail for a few years." He ignores me, as I suspected he would do. There's a part of Gareth Rhys-Jones that's impervious to sound advice when he's in a mood.

********** ********** ********** ********** **********

Gareth.

Six thirty. I'm sitting in the office: alone. Everybody has gone home. Home. That's the last place I want to go. I don't want to go back to the clicking fingers that will have me on my knees begging for forgiveness. Then my mobile phone rings. I don't even answer it. I don't want to speak to anyone. I don't even bother looking who is calling. Eventually it stops. Five minutes later His phone rings... the one I keep just for Him. Only He can use this phone. Only He knows the number to it. I let it ring, and then it goes to voicemail. I want to ignore it, but I can't. The fingers are clicking. I check the call because I want to hear the clicking fingers. But it's not the clicking fingers... it's Gretel, using His phone!

I listen to the hesitant voice. "Hello Gareth. Sorry about this but I need to speak to you. Can you ring us please."

I ring the apartment landline. It rings twice and Gretel answers. "Gareth?"

"Yes. What's the matter?"

"It's Aleric. He's not well."

"There's a doctor's number in the phone book by the telephone. Call him."

Gretel's voice is suddenly quiet. "It's not a doctor he wants, Gareth. It's you."

"I don't understand."

"Yes you do, Gareth. You two have fallen out again and I'm the piggy in the middle. Well this time you can sort yourselves out. I've got my Ralf in hospital and better things to do than mess about with two crazy kids." I'm quiet. I just can't answer. I hear the clicking fingers. Click! Click! Click! Then Gretel speaks again. "Aleric is being a baby and staying in bed. In his bed. So we're going to see Ralf." Gretel is quiet for a moment, and then she says very quietly, "Just one more thing. If you come home, he's covered in paint."

Gretel breaks the call.

I hear the fingers. Click! Click! Click! Two crazy kids. That cut to the bone, and I'm angry. I'm not a fucking crazy kid! Click! Click! Click!

****************

I remember my grandparents. I loved them. They never asked anything of me... all they did was give. Mostly love, but also some sound advice and a lot of worldly education. They loved me much more than my parents did. They always seemed to be busy. Dad was always busy making money and Mum was always busy being his backup.

I remember my schooldays. I didn't enjoy them. I wasn't one of those boys who other boys liked a lot, and I never hung around in the small cliques they formed.

My first schooling was in a tiny primary school near our home at Abergavenny, just far enough up from The Valleys not to smell the lower classes. Near my grandparents home it was too, before they moved to Mid Wales... to Builth Wells after I became an adult. Until I was eleven years old that is. We didn't move house, but I moved to another school. A comprehensive school where I had to mix with all sorts, including the lower classes. My parents were dithering over whether to send me to a private school. My lovely grandparents had a say in that. Thinking back, it was grandfather who was Capi di Tutti Capo in our family. That's who I really take after. He came from solid roots steeped in coal mining and he was born and bred in The Rhonda Valley where everybody worked in the pits. And he began his working life as a coal miner until he was twenty-four and decided he wanted to improve himself. So he studied and studied until he became a professor of languages. By the time I came along he spoke fourteen languages. Then he discovered in me a fellow natural language person. That's why he wouldn't let me go to a private school. He loved me. I was his boy! He was going to be my tutor. And he was. He spent countless hours teaching me how to speak foreign languages. He would never be able to teach me fourteen languages, something that had taken him almost a working lifetime to achieve. But he taught me seven languages other than my own native tongue. Well, he did his best to teach them to me. I've honed them since. It relaxes me to spend hours perfecting what he taught me.

And, apart from those terrible four years when I was going through my crazy early teenage period and was damned cruel to them, we travelled. Mother and father took me to some places overseas, but it usually had something to do with his businesses, him being a high flyer and eventually being head of a multinational corporation in the world of clothing. But my real travelling education came from my grandparents.

They both loved cultural history and travelling to places that were steeped in it. Rarely the USA, but to South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East... places where cultural history goes back millennia and not a few centuries. We did travel to Europe, but grandfather always used to say, We're European. Too near home my boy. But it was he and grandmother who first took me to Berlin. I remember I asked him, Why are we going to Berlin. Isn't it too near home? He laughed at me and told me I'd got a good memory. Then he said something that has always stayed with me. I want to show you Berlin. I want to show you the greatest reconstruction of a city anywhere in the world.

And that's when I fell in love with the city I now live in. I also fell in love with the German people. Yes, I knew of their past and the horrors of the Third Reich, but the young people of modern Germany are not of the mould of their forefathers. They are alike in many ways... industrious and intelligent, but the last war has rid them of their hegemony. Well, in a warlike way. Now they use their industrious nature to create a country that is dominant, which suits their nature, but they've done it in a clever way through hard work and skills that few can match in the world.

We went to other places. I recall we went to Northern Pakistan. I hated the place because there was so much poverty and the inhabitants lived in filth. But I learnt a lot. One thing springs to mind now that I will never forget. We were in Peshawar, a city near the east end of the Khyber Pass. West from Peshawar would take us into Afghanistan, and there were lines and lines of brightly coloured, ramshackle trucks ready to make the journey. It was there that I first learnt of the love between men and boys.

I remarked to grandfather that each of the trucks had a small boy accompanying the drivers. I asked him why that was. So he told me. We talked about many things did grandfather and I, but this was the first time he talked to me about sexual matters. Well, sexual matters that I was not familiar with. When he'd finished, I was embarrassed. We'd been to Greece and Rome and he'd explained or I'd learnt myself about the homosexual aspects of those ancient communities, but this was modern homosexuality, and it was between men and boys. He explained that the drivers were away from their womenfolk for weeks at a time and it was forbidden that they found their human pleasures with other women. So they found those pleasures with young boys instead. I remarked that homosexuality was forbidden in Muslim countries. So he told me that having sex with boys that had not yet grown hair on their top lip was not regarded as a homosexual act. The boys were not deemed old enough be sexual creatures, therefore the act could not be regarded as a homosexual act. I shut up then, but being the curious creature I was at a young age, it wasn't long before I knew all about it. And for a while afterwards I spent quite a few hours and days researching something so curious. I learnt a lot from that visit to Pakistan.

Those truck drivers and their boys. Grandfather's explanation was too simple. I worked that out after the further research, but it's only now that I'm really beginning to understand... now I have a boy of my own. Away from their womenfolk for weeks at a time and it was forbidden that they found their human pleasures with other women. That's a load of bollocks. I'd bet my fortune most of those truck drivers were pederasts. Why shouldn't they be? They were products of arranged marriages and they had very little say in who they ended up with, and it's a fallacy that women of Persian descent are all good lookers. You rarely get to see their faces, but I've seen a few when they haven't been wearing the burqa or the hijab. I wouldn't go near some of them with Pete Sawyer's dick. That, I reckon, is why those truck drivers were away weeks at a time with pretty boys. They were like me.

Like me. Well, not like me in many ways. I'll bet none of them had a boy like Aleric who can click his fucking fingers and have me running to him. I pity them if they did. Perhaps they did. Perhaps there are Pakistani Alerics. There are enough of those trucks lying at the bottom of ravines to warrant more Alerics. They didn't have a Wanssee to walk into. Perhaps if they had a Click, Click, Click Aleric they would have driven off the roads into the ravines just as I felt I wanted to do after I dropped him off. But I wanted to smash myself into smithereens against a bridge. The only thing that stopped me was the thought that the Bentley would probably have taken the impact and I would have been left like Ralf... or worse... and that my death would have hurt my precious boy so much that just the thought of it was painful.

Love! It's bullshit what they write about it! All this lovey-dovey stuff and live happily ever after shit. It's not like that at all. Well real love isn't. It's the most beautiful, wonderful thing when it's going well, but when things are going wrong, it's the worst thing on earth that can happen to you. It can destroy your very being... it can be cruel beyond belief, and no pain-killers can take away the hurt. Break a leg or even have your innards splattered everywhere and you'll be given a dose of diamorphine to take away the pain. But you can't do that with love. There are only two antidotes to the poison that is real love: death and reconciliation.

Fuck him! Click! Click! Click! I bang my head on the desk. It's not a doctor he wants, Gareth. It's you. Just one more thing. If you come home, he's covered in paint.

Click! Click! Click! I sob. My beautiful boy! What has he done now? Are there no bounds to his madness? Are there no bounds to my love for him?

I pick up the keys to the Bentley and storm out of the office.

To be continued...

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