Roy's hands slide along the backs of Nathan's thighs. The touch burns through all Nathan's nerves, as if his body senses a new intent. Roy slides his hands down Nathan's thighs. Undershorts glide down.
The shock of contact, Roy's soft mouth. It is as if Nathan's nerves are bursting, a wet heat He has never felt anything like the touch. Roy's face slides in and out of shadow. Now Nathan has something to think about, other than the fear that someone is there in the darkness, waiting in the doorway in the darkness. Tension drains away. He lets go.
When the flashlight finds them, Roy is still kneeling in front of Nathan, and Nathan's pants are tangled at his ankles. The flashlight catches Roy's mouth straining over Nathan's heaving abdomen. But at the touch of light Roy freezes, and Nathan opens his eyes.
"So." The voice is Burke's, deep and full of bitterness. "This is what you guys do."
Silence.
"You see it, Randy?" "Yeah." Disgust.
"Looks like Roy sucks dick pretty good," Burke says.
Roy shoves Nathan away. "Get the fuck out of here," Roy says to the beam of light.
Nathan freezes. He is fumbling with his own clothes. He can still see Roy's face, full of horror.
"Don't stop now"
"Turn off that goddamn thing." Roy stands. His voice is trembling with rage.
Randy says, "Jesus, Roy, you do that to him?"
Roy makes a whimpering sound. He steps over Nathan toward the door. "Get away" His voice strangled.
The flashlight suddenly vanishes.
Footsteps retreat.
Numb. When Nathan turns, Roy's outline hovers in the doorway. It is Roy, the figure is his, was his. Hesitant, one arm on the doorjamb, Roy searches down the hall in the darkness. For a moment there is a fluctuation that Nathan can feel, the possibility of another division of time, so that Roy could both stay and escape. But the moment remains rigorous. Roy vanishes.
He is alone in the dark for a long time, with a wind howling through him.
The house has fallen silent. The vague doorway remains empty. Nathan sits with his hands on his knees. His shirt hangs open, last touched by Roy. The faintest feather of air along his bare skin is his only true sensation.
He has no thoughts for a long time. He sits and breathes. Sketches of past moments return to him, Roy's hands and mouth, the sudden pressure of their bodies, the miracle of reciprocity, and then the abrupt wash of light, the realization that Burke and Randy had found them. Fragments of that sequence recur. Most vivid is when Roy pushes him away. Nathan has stayed frozen in that position ever since.
But these are memories. He can escape them. What he cannot escape is the sensation of wind inside him. There is a torn place somewhere in his gut and wind is rushing through it. A sound, like someone humming a sad hymn, resonates through the hollow.
After a while he realizes he is really humming, and the hymn is "Near to the Heart of God." Quiet rest. The room echoes with his voice.
A prickle along his neck warns him. He turns slowly.
He cannot see anything. Amazing how dark the room remains. But someone waits behind him again. He can hear the breathing this time.
He stands, slowly. His knees are stiff and sore, he must have been sitting for a long time. He faces the place in the darkness from which he hears breathing. Nothing reveals itself, not even a lighter shadow in the inky room. The door has dissolved in the changing fall of moonlight. But something is there, Nathan can hear it.
"Hello." Nathan's voice is a thin thread in the blackness.
A sound, an involuntary step. Something shifting its weight.
"Hello." Nathan steps backward. He tries to feel the direction of the door. He steps again. His heart is pounding.
The sound is distinct this time. The thing comes toward Nathan. Coughs, or clears its throat.
Nathan turns.
Suddenly he has no sense of direction. The doorway, from which moonlight has faded, has become invisible. He takes a step, and the floorboards boards creak dangerously. He stops.
A hand grips him at the elbow.
He makes a low sound and tries to pull away. The hand tightens.
Nathan cannot even hear breathing. "Who are you?"
The hand simply grips him. The hand is very strong, the fingers dig deep into Nathan's arm. For a stunned moment they are motionless. Then Nathan lunges away from the grip at the same moment that the other hand smashes into his face. Across the bridge of the nose. Nathan sags and the hand closes over his eyes. Nathan is being dragged by the shoulders, he is too dazed to move. He hears cloth being ripped, and he realizes he is staring down at something, that his eyes are seeing something, but then a rag wraps around his head.
Blackness within blackness. The cloth binds tight across his eyes. Now he need not even try to see.
He can still hear breathing, ragged now. After the blindfold they are still again, and Nathan waits. The first wave of panic has passed and his thoughts are becoming clear.
