Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 07:02:13 -0500
From: ^sHarp Simon-Harper <sharper@inorbit.com>
Subject: "It was sunlight" - Chapter Two

"It was sunlight" - Chapter Two - gay story - by Simon Harper
sharper@inorbit.com - Please tell me what you think, especially if you
like it ;-)

This story is totally fictional. The (c) copyright belongs to the author.

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

The day of the wedding was much heralded. I lost count of the number of
times I was talking to someone or other about it. Members of the Valeri
family were resentful, but resigned. Members of the Pascal family were
triumphant. Members of neither family were relieved, and, to varying
degrees, suspicious. Not everyone understood the control the Pascal
family had wrought for themselves over the Valeri. The Valeri were
humiliated, and powerless.

I was sad.

Increasingly I found Michael and Alicia walking together, hand in hand,
Alicia leading Michael adoringly, him following after her, statuesque,
like a stallion tamed. He was smiling like a slave who no longer had a
care in the world, and listening to her talk, like an apprentice taking
instructions, in awe.

He stood upright and proud. His new status - whatever it was - had given
him a self-confidence that had been missing. I wanted him more and more.
He was so beautiful.

We still met, less frequently, and made violent sex on the ground, in the
woods. We often fucked near the lake, because no one else went there.

On the day of the wedding I could not get to see Michael. The night
before there had been a party and I had grabbed him and led him away into
the darkness and fucked him in sight of the party, but invisible. He
cried out as we came and I had to put my hand over his mouth. Then he
kissed me passionately, my prick still inside him.

"Oh, I love you," he said. "Let's stay like this."

"Me inside you . . ."

"Yes. Forever."

And I withdrew, and let him dress, and led him back into the party. No
one seemed to notice.

Then it was the wedding and all day there were celebrations, different
stages of the marriage process.  Finally the whole valley, it seemed,
were assembled in the vast yard of the Pascal farmhouse, lit by fires and
candles and torches. I sat by Michael, drinking and laughing, when Alicia
came over to us and said, "I want you to leave now."

The remark was addressed to me.

"Alicia," I replied, laughing and drunk, "I want to stay."

"You can no longer stay. Your role is at an end. Michael belongs to me
now. You can no longer have him . . .  like you have had him. You cannot
stay."

Since Alicia was standing her voice carried slightly and embarrassed me.

"Sit down here," I said. "Tell me what you mean . . ."

She remained standing, her wedding dress flattened and dirtied by the
activities and festivities of the day.

"I think you know."

Some heads were turning towards her now. I rose so that our faces were
nearer and she had less need to shout - but she thought it meant I was
leaving. She stepped back to let me pass, so that I had to turn in order
to speak to her. As I did so I noticed a look of discomfort and fear on
Michael's face. What should I do? My presence had suddenly become a
potential embarrassment to myself, to Michael, and to everyone present. I
foresaw that this was my future: to be excluded from everything. I
foresaw that, eventually, and soon, I would have to leave. I hesitated. I
had been confronted with a new reality I had feared but not prepared for.
My inclination was to argue with Alicia. I didn't believe she could be
any more explicit than she had been - the outcome would be devastating
for us all - but I saw that it was in everyone's interests, except
perhaps my own, to leave at once. Michael was watching me with a look
that sought to implore me to tread carefully, whilst at the same time
distance myself from the developing drama.

"You are . . . kidding . . . " I suggested to Alicia.

"No, I'm not kidding!"

We were all pretty drunk.

"I want you out of my husband's life," she said, quietly now.

"I can't do that. It isn't fair. He's my lifelong friend. What have I
done wrong? Why have you decided to hate me?"

"I've seen - you idiot - how you treat him."

Did she really know?

"You take him by the arm and you lead him around like you own him."

"That's your imagination. Michael's free to make his own choices. He's
free to choose his friends!"

"Not any more. He's Pascal now. He's one of us. He's bound by our laws,
not the . . . vapid principles you espouse."

I was surprised by the expression she used.

"Where do you get your ideas from?" I asked. "Someone has been misleading
you." I saw her father get up and come over to see what was going on.
Michael stood up as well; he touched my arm and then went to Alicia and
whispered something to her. Then he said to us both, "Come on! Stop being
nasty. I'm sure we can get on. This is no time to be squabbling . . . to
be seen squabbling . . ."

Alicia struck him in the face and he recoiled with alarm. "How dare you
humiliate me like this? How dare you parade your homosexual lover in
front of me like this, on our wedding day! It's got to stop! He has
corrupted you. You and he, arm in arm, walking in the woods, stopping to
kiss and . . ."

"Are you spying on us?" I cried. "No wonder you get the wrong idea.
Things look different if you . . ."

"Shut up," said Michael. "Don't make things worse. They know everything
about us. They know everything. I've promised I'd stop seeing you. I
promised. You have to stop pursuing me now."

He looked at me imploringly and then, noticing his father-in-law
approach, cast his eyes down and took a step back.

The father came up to me, and put an arm round my shoulder, and led me
away, firmly, from the bright lights of the marriage party, towards the
dim surrounding shadows.

"Father!" shouted Alicia. "What are you doing?"

He held up a hand to silence her.

His breath was thick with the smells of food and alcohol and with a day's
growth on his chin he rubbed his face up against mine, as he put his lips
to my ear to speak.  He said my name, familiarly as if we were old
friends who understood each other, who shared the same values, the same
rules of behaviour, the same beliefs.

"Look here, we all know you have been buggering my new son. He is a
pansy, a girl, a bottom boy . . . what have you. He takes it up the arse.
You prefer boys. You like to fuck boys. Understood.

"Come what may - typical Valeri trait. You're not Valeri, no, but they
are all pansies. The lot of them. They were born to be fucked." He
chuckled. "Born to be screwed. We all know that. You are screwing one. So
am I . . . in my way . . . differently . . . screwing the lot of them.
Every one. I have my dick up the arses of every last one of those Valeri
scum and," he laughed some more, with obvious and genuine amusement,
"they love it. They love being screwed, those Valeri fuckers."

I wanted to protest, but he held me firmly and would not let me take my
ear from his mouth. With each word he got more animated and emphatic and
each syllable was spat coated in beery spit into the side of my head.

"But enough in enough, you hear : Enough is enough. It's time for you to
take your dick our of my son and find some other pansy boy to screw,
understand, because he's Pascal now, and under our laws bum boys get the
knife."

He reached into his pocket and produced a shiny broad-bladed pocketknife,
as if by way of illustration.

"See this? This is the Pascal answer to bum buggering bum boys like you
and my new pansy son-in-law.

"Now see that," he pointed with his knife into the darkness ahead of us.
"That is now your place. That is where you belong now. Out of here. In
the darkness that surrounds us, not with everybody else. Leave here and
find your own kind - they are hidden there." He pointed again. "Now! Go!"

He released me and gave me a push. I stumbled forward and fell. On my
knees I turned and looked at Alicia's father. He stood silhouetted by the
light. I was blinded but I was enraged, humiliated, heartbroken and
despairing.

"You can't do this!" I cried. "You're fooling yourself. Alicia and
Michael will never be happy. You're condemning them to a lifetime of
misery."

"No. It will work our, and as a bonus the great vendetta which has
corrupted our villages will be over."

"Justice is the only way to end the vendetta! Justice is the only thing
that matters. Find the man who killed Michael's uncle and bring him to
trial and have the judge pass sentence. That's the only way the Valeri
will ever accept your domination, marriage or no marriage. Release
Michael from this mad arrangement and hand over the guilty murderer to
the Police - you must know who he is!"

Alicia's father took a step forward and then another, extending his had
to me to help me to my feet.

"You're right," he said. "There is much merit in Justice. It certainly
has its uses . . . Come with me. We shall settle this here and now and
once and for all.  We shall have Justice!" He pulled me to my feet and
put an arm around me, again, firmly, and led me back to the carousing
party where we were met by Alicia and Michael, full of questions, and
other members of the Pascal family. He was laughing as he walked.

"This is a very good idea of yours," he laughed. "A very good idea."

We walked through the dancing crowd and through to where the Valeri had
gathered. There was a long table and Michael's father sat at the centre,
sleepy and morose, talking quietly, with a look that implied regret and
heartbreak and shame.  The rest of the Valeri were markedly more subdued
the others at the party - except for the younger ones who had no idea of
the significance of things. No idea yet.

Alicia's father, still with one arm around me, extended a hand to
Michael's father.

"Brother," he said, "Brother. Too long," - he spoke loudly and clearly,
he was making a speech, he wanted plenty of witnesses - "too long we have
lived in enmity, but tonight that will end. Tonight our families are
united at last, in peace and love and forgiveness."

"He paused for mumbles of agreement and some applause."

"Tonight the sins of the past are forgotten. But," he raised a finger,
"not Justice."

A shadow of concern fell over Michael's father's face.

"Justice can never be forgotten and, in Justice, must be avenged."

By now the crowd had fallen silent.

"Justice? What is Justice, when the body of your poor brother lies
fingerless and eyeless and toeless and stripped of it's skin and the
murderer" - at this moment he released me and stepped away from me and
looked directly at me - "goes free? What is Justice?"

Was he asking me?

"Justice," he went on," is the murderer hanging from the gallows.
Tonight," - he turned back to Michael's father, and raised a finger in
the air and brought it down like an axe, pointing to me - "I give you
Justice, my brother!"

"No," I murmured, "you cannot . . . mean . . ."

He addressed me again, "Alicia has told me how you knew where the body
was and led Michael to it, to show him, to demonstrate to him how in your
perverted mind you had revenged yourself on his uncle for the taunts and
mockery he had subjected Michael to - when you knew all along that all
his uncle wanted was that Michael should lead a pine and happy family
life. You wanted Michael for yourself. You wanted him in your power so
that you could turn him into a pansy like you."

"This is all madness! It's untrue!" I shouted.

"You killed Paul and then boasted of it to Michael to make him grateful
to you, so he would perform lewd acts for you. Thankfully, he is stronger
than that. Thankfully . . ."

I realised I had become trapped and, instinctively resolute, turned to
dash away - but Michael was standing behind me and didn't expect my
sudden movement. I slammed straight into him. Our faces smashed together
in a lurid kiss and our arms briefly tangled as our bodies contacted each
other. It was enough; Alicia's father shouted "Good, Michael, hold him!"

But Michael didn't hold me, and I was crazed to escape. I dodged around
him and ran off into the night - panic and terror and the certainty of
death lifted my feet and guided me as I careered full pelt down the
invisible track. I had the energy ad agility to propel me on, leaving an
audience stunned to inactivity, despite Alicia's father shouting his
command to grab me, pursue me, bring me to Justice!

I didn't stop running until I reached the ferry; and on the other side I
met the Police, waiting for me, armed with a warrant for my arrest, for
murder.

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

And that is how I died.

I was kept on the mainland to await trial. Nobody visited until after I
had been found guilty and was led back to the cells.

Still stunned by the course of events and the terrible verdict I was led
to a room where, on the other side of a wire barrier, sat my Mother,
white faced and quivering, tears on her face and red eyes.

"Oh," she said, "What have you done?"

"Believe me," I said, "I am innocent."

"You brought this on yourself."

"Have you come to console me?"

"You should be consoling me, Son. What do you have to say that can heal
the great wound you have opened in me?"

"I'm not the one who lied in court! I'm not the one who lied in court!
I'm not the one who, knowing the truth, kept silent! I have committed no
crime whatsoever. Can you only accuse?"

"I have come to visit you so that . . . you can ask my forgiveness. You
owe me this : the opportunity to accept your remorse and take you back
into my prayers. You owe me the chance to forgive you, but I cannot
forgive you if you do not ask me to."

"I have done nothing wrong."

I thought for a moment.

"I cannot ask your forgiveness," I said, "for I have done nothing wrong;
but I forgive you for what you have said."

"You are an ungrateful boy," she said, rising to leave. As she got to the
door she turned and said "Sebastian," - Sebastian is my name. "You know I
love you."

She hurried to leave and I do not think she heard my reply.

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

I decided to write some last words in a letter to Michael.

"Will the letter be delivered to him personally?" I asked the staff
guard. He assured me that if my request was that no one but the intended
recipient would touch the letter, then that wish would be respected and
enforced.

Thus reassured I wrote frankly of my feelings, my wishes, and desires,
and hopes, and love for him, into that letter. And as I was led to the
gallows I handed it to the staff guard with explicit instructions that it
be given to Michael and him only.

Later that afternoon the letter was given to Alicia's father. "I'll see
that it is delivered unopened to Michael as soon as possible," he said to
the messenger.

When he read the letter he was so enraged by the frankness and depth of
my expression that he decided there was no place for Michael in his
family - and consequently no place for the truce the marriage brought
about. He resolved to massacre the Valeri family and thus end the Valeri
once and for all. But on the night of the massacre Michael was nowhere to
be found. He escaped and travelled eventually to Paris where, in the
fullness of time, he found a truer heart to him than I had ever been :
his own. But that is another story, and one I do not any longer have the
time to tell.

That is how I imagined it, then, as the noose was put about my neck. And
as the noose was tightened about my neck it was Michael I imagined, and
it was the sunlight on his face.

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

"It was sunlight" - Chapter Two - gay story - by Simon Harper
sharper@inorbit.com - Please tell me what you think, especially if you
like it ;-)

This story is totally fictional. The (c) copyright belongs to the author.

Keep wood and stay sharp^^
My other stories :
/gay/sf-fantasy/i-am-not-interested
/gay/authoritarian/one-thing-i-might-do
/gay/authoritarian/as-a-postman
/gay/sf-fantasy/some-holiday
/gay/authoritarian/how-we-met