Over several days, Gilles' wounds healed and his bruises began to fade. The scabs went dark, then hoared over inwardly while the scarlet and purpleblack bruises shrank and faded below his tan. The skin on his face loosened a little again as the swelling receded; it was no longer taut and heated to the touch, but soft and slightly wrinkled again.
The darkest of Gilles' bruises had nearly disappeared, leaving behind only faint impressions of color - mauve and waxy violet, flax and cornsilk. He looked more like himself these days; his eyes no longer burned from beneath a half-ruined face, his speech was clearer and surer.
The worst of the bruises were the color of late-summer leaves now, blanched and subdued. As if Gilles were coming back to himself, resurfacing.
Everything, however, was still tender. Soft to the touch, certain to bring up a wince. On Gilles' skin, and between him and Daniel, and around them. Daniel did not know how long things had been changing, nor at what speed. Like a bruise, the origin could, of course, be identified. The slap of palm was unmistakable, as was the moment of Gilles' return.
But origins were not what Daniel sought.
"Does this hurt?" he asked, pressing his palm against Gilles' cheek.
Gilles covered Daniel's hand with his own and held it in place. His eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes."
"How'd you get it?"
"Fighting, a bellyful of fighting," Gilles said. After a moment, he added, "I won."
Daniel's other hand touched Gilles' stomach and he asked, "And now? Still fighting?"
"For the peace of you," Gilles said, circling his arms around Daniel's waist, "I hold such strife as to be a dream."
Not origins, but the consequences. What followed the beginning; Daniel wanted to know all of Gilles' body, the story of each bruise, chronicles of the tattoos, legends behind the scars and their constellations. Since Gilles' return, they lived together as close as bruise and skin, surrounded in swells and trembles of disturbed air.
Gilles brought his work upstairs, a large metal apothecary table and beakers of stones, liquids, and powders. Mick hauled wooden crate after crate of dried flowers from the elevator and piled them beneath the table.
Gilles seemed as loath to leave Daniel's presence as Daniel was to leave his.
In the mornings, Daniel read while Gilles worked, and their afternoons and nights were free. Daniel curled up on a long chaise, watching Gilles bend to his work with an intensity that on anyone else might have seemed maniacal.
He ground bezoars in a pestle and filled small transparent sacs with the shifting powder. With a razor blade, he cut quivering tangles of cubozoan tentacles, emptying their liquor into tiny vials; then he coaxed the gelatinous mesoglea out from between the layers of jellyfish skin. It shimmered and bunched on the tabletop and Gilles hardly breathed as he sliced it into smaller and smaller quarters, finally sweeping them onto a ceramic tray for drying.
This was another kind of magic, combined with the fire that Gilles could produce by muttering between thumb and forefinger and breathing out shaking sheets of flame that hovered over the gelatin, drying and crisping it. This magic was all concentration and dismemberment, extraction and transformation.
Daniel stood beside Gilles and rested his hand on the edge of the table.
Gilles pinched the head of one flower and made a single tiny incision down its side. He squeezed the head and Daniel held his breath as a sharp-smelling milk oozed out the cut and into a shallow dish. The flower's petals, dried now, no longer crimson but dark as old blood, were piled in one corner of the table. One was dry like crepe in his fingers.
"What does that do?" he asked when Gilles had pierced ten flower-heads and the dish was filled with the milky liquid. It smelled acrid and sweet all at once, like alcohol and honey.
Gilles put his left arm around Daniel's waist and pulled him closer. With his right hand, he stirred the liquid, folding it over and over. "Sparks joy and dreams."
"Did you ever try it?"
"I have, yes," Gilles said. "I received despair and nightmares."
"Why?"
"Too monstrous, fallen too far, for this to work," he said quietly. He dipped his finger into the milk and offered it to Daniel. "You don't need this."
Daniel closed his eyes and sucked the sharp honey from Gilles' finger. His mouth warmed as if he'd inhaled steam and soon his tongue and palate softened as his eyes watered and the warmth unfurled into his skull. He would have stumbled as his spine brightened in time with his heartbeat, but Gilles held him securely, pushing his finger in and out of Daniel's mouth.
"Do you like that?" Gilles whispered.
Blinking, trying to keep his eyes open, Daniel saw lilac light washing over Gilles' face, and he smiled, nipping Gilles' knuckle and sucking harder. His mind swam, thoughts like pink dolphins in rivers of milk, and Gilles caught him as he cascaded forward. Kissing Gilles, groaning at the thick, kindling buzz creeping through him, he sought out Gilles' tongue, felt a hand in his hair and one supporting his ass, and the warmth flowed from his mouth outward.
"I like that," he replied as Gilles lifted him onto the edge of the table and jerked at his fly. When he traced his fingers through Gilles' hair, he dragged blue sparks and mauve lights both felt and seen. Gilles pressed his palm into the dish, then wrapped his fingers around Daniel's cock. Daniel arched back, whipcrack fast, the sensation so sharp and the colors speeding past his eyes and up his spine dizzying. They would have been frightening, but Gilles was kissing him again, murmuring rapidly into his mouth as he tugged at Daniel's cock, and the sea of color-milk-chorus tingles pouring through him intensified.
"Innocens manibus et mundo corde qui non accepit in vano animam suam," Gilles chanted against Daniel's cheek, tightening, then twisting his fist. Daniel bucked, and grasped, Gilles' chanting speeding through the miasma of color and sensation, clarifying it, pulling Daniel higher. "Adoro te devote, bellus puer, quae sub his figuris vere latitas: tibi se cor meum totum subiicit, quia te contemplans totum deficit."
Scrape of teeth down his throat, speeding hand on his cock, and so much warmth flowing like honey and Daniel arched away from Gilles, driving his hips forward, and he heard Gilles singing, urging and adoring him, as he came, jerking spasmodically so the table and all its contents rattled and clanked and the pleasure was torn from him. Gilles licked his palm clean and gathered Daniel against him.
"Those are the dreams," he whispered, kissing away the sweat. "Fantasies of pleasure for those who need to feel. Before, a joy proposed, behind, a dream."
*
Things like a bruise that refused to heal. Worries and vague questions, light as clouds at dawn.
Gilles, perhaps, regretted knowing Daniel, caring for him, promising him not to hide. For his part, Daniel did not care to push Gilles and test those promises. He was content - or ought to have been and did try to be - to appreciate Gilles, to welcome his return again and again.
He did not know what he was doing: Ever, but especially now. This place - Verona Beach itself, tawdry and swirling with light, but also the warehouse and the loft on top - was, he sometimes thought, too much for the likes of him. Yet he did not, he was certain, miss the monastery and the dark of its forest. He breathed in neon and exhaled Roman candles here, and he could not go back.
Half a moment from sleep one night, and Daniel thought he heard Gilles speak while touching his hair and stroking his cheek. "If there be nothing new in you," Gilles whispered, forming thoughts aloud, "but that which is has been before, how my brain is beguiled."
Daniel lay still, feigning sleep even as he ached to move into Gilles' touch. He looked like others Gilles had touched - everyone said so, including Gilles - but Gilles, like the others, found him different.
"For you, no farther can my thoughts move, and I still with them, and they with you."
Drawing a sharp breath, Daniel willed open his eyes and found Gilles peering at him, looking at him like a stranger he could not recognize. "And mine with you," Daniel whispered, catching Gilles' shoulder as he tried to jerk away.
"It is nothing rational." Gilles sounded sad, derelict and lost, but he let Daniel hold him there. "Reason must kneel, and leave sense, and those which sense's objects are. Deal it with powers of thoughts, leave love to will."
"Not rational, no," Daniel agreed, rolling against Gilles, splaying his legs over Gilles'. He could not explain why he felt the way he did, but Gilles, he knew, sought analysis and reason with far greater need and determination. "Not sensible either."
Gilles, whatever his reservation, at least did not seem to push Daniel away. Perhaps his escape on the island had been too violent, too upsetting, even for him - he who was attuned to violence, who sought and crafted disorder only to smash it back into clarity. Daniel could understand that hesitancy, drowning in just what you think you need and want; if he was out of his element, it was a rough, strange comfort to think that Gilles might be as well.
*
Late afternoon, and the sun-worshippers have departed this beach for others that face west, and Daniel sat across from Gilles on the edge of the old carousel. The beasts that used to spin, griffon, pony, eagle and dolphin, were long still now, their paint peeling off in wide strips, blanking their eyes and mottling their hides.
They had a wedge of watermelon and Gilles' switchknife, and no napkins; Daniel's face was sticky and the bees adored him.
"I was wrong, you know," Gilles said when Daniel started to tell him about the night garden, and Joan, and Mick's attempt to take him away. "You have a greater sense of self-preservation than anyone I know."
With his less sticky hand, Daniel combed Gilles' hair from his forehead and smiled. "What about Abel?"
Tired and pained as he clearly felt, Gilles managed to return the smile. "Excellent point. Abel -" He stopped and kissed Daniel's forehead. "So young. No comparison."
"And Mick?"
"He was supposed to guard you," Gilles said. He handed a section of watermelon to Daniel, a waft of sweet air preceding it. "Watch over you, ensure -"
Grinning, Daniel disinterred the seeds with his thumb and sucked the juice from his fingers. The idea of Mick as any kind of guard or protector was difficult to hold for long. "No -" he said when Gilles did not smile to let on that it was a joke. "Really?"
"Yes. Not, admittedly, the best plan -"
Daniel tore the slice apart and handed one half to Gilles. "But you never -" *Never said, never mentioned, never _told_ me.*
"I never," Gilles agreed.
A breeze picked up, spattering sand and leaves of newspaper against the edge of the carousel. The fruit's flesh was warm to the touch and Daniel sucked out the juice as he peered at Gilles. He wanted to apologize, but he did not know what for. An apology wasn't quite what he was looking for; he wanted to *speak* to Gilles, draw skin-close and be done with words.
"I -" He scored the rind with his fingernail. "Where did you go?"
"The island. You know that."
"For three days?"
"Yes." Short burst of breath, enough for one syllable and no more.
Daniel had not let himself wonder where Gilles might be; there were too many possibilities, an array as wide and distant as the horizon. Swimming, he had not looked back. "I'm sorry."
Gilles tipped his forehead against Daniel's and drew him back into the shadows between the blue pony and the brazen dolphin. "Sssh. As gentle and as jocund as to jest, come I to love; truth has a quiet breast." His fingers worked open Daniel's collar and pressed against his breastbone as he kissed Daniel almost shyly. "You see?"
Daniel did not see, but he relaxed against Gilles, as he always did, and the kiss drew out trembling waves across his skin.
*
Daniel disagreed. "I don't think I want anything."
"You must have wanted *something*," Gilles said.
He thought about the temple complex, the long hours of silence and study and the grieving sounds of wind through the pines. He wanted to answer Gilles, but, more, to find the answer for himself. If the answer existed, he might be able to snatch it from the air, plaster it to himself and add to the collage that he was becoming. "To please the priests, maybe?"
"So nothing has changed, then." Gilles grinned as he spoke. "Only the priest and how he might be pleased."
It was a joke, Daniel knew, and he smiled because the comparison was so absurd. "I wanted - I wanted -" He stopped and shrugged. "Want? It's an impossible word."
"Surely you enjoyed some things more than others?"
"Swimming," Daniel said. "Reading. I -"
"And friends? Other boys?"
"I never had friends. Don't."
Curving, Gilles' eyebrows approached each other, then rose. "Of course you do. You've many friends. Me. Joan, however bizarre the thought of *that* may seem. Your mysterious greenhouse date. Everywhere we go, you smile at several people you somehow know."
"But they're -" Daniel stopped. "I like the people here. They're kind, and very interesting." He made himself stop; he sounded ridiculously foolish, as he always used to do. Gilles looked as if he was trying not to smile. "Those are friends?"
"I think they qualify," Gilles said. He glanced at the volumes of his massive dictionary, arrayed on the bottom bookshelf. "I could check, if you like -"
Ducking his head, Daniel grinned. "All right. I think I had a friend here, before you. I'd talk to him a lot, help with chores, ask him questions."
Gilles touched the top of Daniel's spine, two fingers circling lightly. "And?"
"I failed," Daniel said. For a moment, he was back *there*. Sitting in the last pew on the left at St. Athanasius, the onionskin pages of the hymnal smooth against his palms and lingering incense tickling his nose. He closed his eyes as Gilles' touch increased its pressure on the back of his neck, and he could hear the sharp intake of Father Theo's breath, how he drew out the syllables of Daniel's name as if they were poisoned, then the sharp clicks of the priest's heels as he hurried away.
Opening them, he was back in the loft and Gilles was staring at him, unreadable. "I won't again. I'm not stupid."
"Never were," Gilles said, drawing Daniel against his chest and kissing his cheek. "You never were."
"Maybe. But I won't again."
*
Things happen - events occur - and Daniel was not so foolish or arrogant to believe that he could have any control over them. He did think, however, that it might be possible to...intervene? If not influence, at least appear.
What happens, Daniel wanted to know, after promises are made?
Gilles had returned, and searing hunger had burst back over Daniel along paths old and new. Its explosion was mirrored in Gilles' eyes and restless touch, but it while it drew them together, it was not the answer.
Old hunger, shining through more recent loss, washed over with new heat. Daniel remembered and felt it all: Gilles' presence, disappearance, and return. The variant and contrary memories sheeted through him dizzyingly. Gilles had changed, in ways Daniel could not precisely name, as had Daniel himself. He was not the boy who stepped off the beach and swam away; he was that boy, and the one who had welcomed Gilles back, and the one in midstream to boot.
Everything at once, the image of what Gilles lusted for as well as the person Gilles swore he loved.
*
Daniel found the motel after several false starts, a small, round-cornered building behind a mews and unmarked save for the raven on its sign. He knocked on the door to room #3, and a skeletal hand shot out through the gap admitted by the deadlock chain. It grabbed the tiny silver envelope on which Gilles' calligraphic hand had written the name and address. No money was exchanged; how Gilles was paid for the deliveries Daniel made was between him and the dreamers.
He rode the streetcar back to the heart of the city, standing with his knees bent because he still had not accustomed himself to the rocking; when he descended the steep steps to the street and turned for the avenue that led to his next stop, his balance was off and he did not see Inez until, stumbling, the steel-gray of her habit filled his vision.
Daniel straightened his back. "Do you follow me?"
Inez crossed her arms and shook her head fractionally. "Why? Don't you want anyone to know where you are?"
"I don't want to talk to you," Daniel said and turned to go.
Inez caught him by the shoulder. "Daniel. That's not very kind, is it? What could you be hiding?"
"Nothing."
"Then you should not mind being seen."
Daniel dropped his shoulder from her hand and adjusted the strap of his satchel. "I need to go."
She grabbed for his bag as Daniel stepped away. "Do you know what he has you carry?"
He twisted, but her grip on the strap immobilized him. Smiling to herself, Inez tugged him to the bench at the streetcar stop and upended the bag. She tore open the largest envelope and shook out its contents on the seat between them. A cascade of red braids and blue capsules and vials of rust-bright water.
"Dreams," Daniel said.
"Poisoned dreams, vile fantasies."
"Yes," he said. "But -" He could not defend Gilles, but he was more curious why he felt he must.
"It's quite profitable," Inez said. "But then -" She touched his ring, then his bracelet. "You know that."
He hadn't know that, not for a long time. Not until Gilles asked what had happened to his ring. "Chipped it," Daniel had said. "So I took it off." The ring, Gilles told him, cost $700 and Daniel did not how to apologize. "Don't apologize," Gilles had said and Daniel believed him. "Yours to decorate and improve."
"Talk to Gilles," Daniel said now. "I'm not the one you want."
Inez smoothed the scarf at her throat, then piled up the pills and vials with the side of her hand. "You're mistaken. I don't *want* either one of you."
"But you -"
"Oh, I care about your immortal soul," she said and when she smiled, her lips curved like snakes. "I'd be derelict if I didn't. But this is far more important than you or that sick, sad old man."
Inez picked up a single capsule, red and faceted as a garnet, and turned it against the sun.
"You can't stop him," Daniel said. He knew that much; people wanted Gilles' deliveries, craved his dreams, stopped him in the street to ask for more. "People want it."
Without glancing at him, Inez crushed the garnet between her thumb and forefinger and its contents ran down her hand. "You're a sweet boy. Captivated, enthralled, entirely stupid. But very sweet."
Heat throbbed outward from his chest along a fine, spider-intricate network and Daniel pulled himself up. "Hypocrite."
"Oh, no," Inez said. "A realist, perhaps. But never a hypocrite."
"You talk about goodness, about faith and love -"
"No. Your sugardaddy does. *I* talk about weak souls and the need to care for them. Tend to them, lead them. Shepherd them."
"People -" Daniel tried to say and kept on, even though Inez was smiling at him again. "They're not sheep."
"This is a sick and hollow world. The one to come will be glorious, abundant with reward. But only for those of us who've done our duty. Who have lived righteously and well."
Her words were clear and forthright, sharp as crystal, and for a moment Daniel knew that *he* must be the one in the wrong here. If he could not understand her, and he couldn't, it was because he was stupid, because she was right.
"That's right, child," Inez said when Daniel had remained silent too long. "You're not capable of grasping these mysteries."
"Not your mysteries, no." Daniel stood and Inez opened her mouth. He could not think clearly, not with her words singing shrilly in his ears, and he needed to escape. "They're ridiculous. Cruel."
"Yet a primordial void, empty of all but light? That's not ridiculous?"
He ground his lips together and shrugged. When Gilles made light of his beliefs, Daniel could smile; Inez's motivations were obscure and suspect, and thus far more hurtful. "No."
"Think on it, then. In the meantime, enjoy your base perversion." Inez rose and rested her palm briefly against his cheek.
"Tell me what you want." Horrible word, all about grasping and ownership and control.
Inez was smiling again, widely, girlishly. "I want only what's right."
Daniel glanced down the street, then back at the pile. "For all this to vanish."
"Stupid boy," she said. "Of course not."
He did not want to ask again what it was that she wanted; Inez's definition of what was *right* was, he suspected, even more intimidating and incomprehensible than she herself. She strode away and Daniel squatted beside the bench to pick up each capsule and vial.
He did not complete his errands, deciding instead to return to the loft. He needed to tell Gilles. Rushing to make the light, Daniel turned his ankle on the curb and limped toward the space between two buildings. He leaned against one wall, lifting his foot and flexing it methodically against the pain.
Across from him, the wall of the next building sported the remains of years of posters and fliers, advertisements for entertainments long since forgotten. Each old poster was stripped off before the new one was glued up; he'd watched the process many times in the early morning hours, the squads of half-grown children scuttling awkwardly under the weight of paste buckets and rollers as tall as they.
Here, though, was a wall they had missed for a long time. The old paper hung in strips, layers of it, their enticing colors - crimson for L'Amour cola, bottle-green for whiskey, yellow for pain relief potions - faded down to dots and texture. The wall they covered was candy-pink stucco, nearly glowing in the slanting sun, scraps of it still vibrant between the strips.
Breathing away the pain in his ankle, Daniel studied the wall, examining a lozenge of blue, a segment of a woman's laughing mouth, a webwork of black cross-hatches, he began to imagine that the layers were first.
The strips and fragments, that is, preceded the whole posters, laid the ground and contained the essential qualities of what had disappeared. The collection of fragments became, as he watched, its own *thing*, complete if incomprehensible, broken details relating more directly to one another than to their former contests. His vision swam with color, itching and textural, and it was nearly overwhelming.
His ankle was still tender, but Daniel pushed himself away from the wall and hurried away. The assemblage of paper, paint, and fragments burst and deepened behind his lids.
Gilles met Daniel as the elevator settled to a stop on the top floor. "Daniel, what -?"
Daniel pushed the satchel at him. "Inez, and she's seen your dreams."
Stumbling backwards, the bag in his arms like an infant, Gilles looked between it and Daniel as Daniel leaned against the arm of the nearest couch. "You saw her?"
"Saw her, argued with her," Daniel said. Exhaustion poured through him, leaving him weak and rubber-kneed. "She follows me, dogs and taunts me."
"That venomous worm-hag -" Gilles said and Daniel covered his eyes. "I'll cly the foul girl. From my ruin that cursed procuress rose."
When he next looked up, Gilles was pulling on his linen jacket. He held the elevator door open, keys jangling in his hand. "We'll finish this. This blow must be the be-all and the end-all here."
Daniel followed him, confused, unable to say anything. Gilles was furious and never looked at him once as they got into the car. Gilles peeled out, the tires smoking behind them. In the raging silence, as the city flashed by as fast as a nightmare and Gilles ran light after light, Daniel became convinced that he must be at fault. All the signs were present -- the granite set to Gilles' face, his silence and the scream of the tires and horns of cars, the departure from the loft. He was at fault, and he was being discarded.
When Gilles made a sharp left across two lanes and pulled into the parking lot of St. Athanasius, Daniel's fear liquefied like lava. "Please -" he said as Gilles jumped out of the car. "I can't -"
He'd rather go back to New Drepung, vanish into forest-quiet and lonely thoughts, than be returned to St. Athanasius.
Gilles did not seem to hear him. He yanked open Daniel's door and set off up the walk to the church.
Daniel caught up with him in the vestibule. Gilles splashed his fist in the basin of holy water and crossed himself violently. He bit his thumb and turned to the door marked Private.
"Gilles, please - " Daniel tried. "Don't leave me here."
He should apologize for failing, beg Gilles' forgiveness, offer wild promises of amends. He could not; he was not proud, but nor did he have anything to apologize *for*.
As he turned toward Daniel, Gilles' expression loosened, shifting from fury to tenderness. His brows lifted, then knitted, and his eyes softened. "Darling, not you. Never you."
"Then -" Daniel started to ask, but Gilles put his arm around Daniel's shoulders and pushed through the private door. Gilles' stride was long and Daniel rushed to keep up. At the end of the corridor the priest's office, off the vestry, was behind another door that Gilles opened with his fist.
Father Theo sat at his desk, calmly watching their entrance; Daniel was shaking inside from Gilles' repressed violence, but Theo merely gestured at the chairs before his desk.
"Gilles," he said. He looked just as Daniel remembered him, thin and tall, even sitting down, his black shirt and white collar immaculate and crisp, his voice careful and measured.
"Theophorus," Gilles said, the chair creaking as he dropped into it. "This is becoming ridiculous. I need your help."
Daniel hadn't ever heard Theo's full name; everyone at St. Athanasius, from Inez to the altar boys and parishioners called him Theo.
"I can't help you." Father Theo pressed both palms against his desk-blotter and spread his fingers. "The Church has done with you. The city has branded you."
"You are neither church nor city," Gilles said gently, as if reminding him. "You are also more."
Theo appeared to smile, but it was a sad, small thing. "I am no one, Gilles. Merely an organ of a much larger body."
"I once thought you a friend."
Theo did smile now, his narrow, handsome face lighting and loosening. "We both know that's not true."
Gilles rubbed his chin; behind his hand, Daniel glimpsed the spread of his smile. It was not the kind of smile he used on Daniel, but with Mick and Abel: a daring, challenging one.
"You really ought to have been a lawyer," Gilles said. "Or a politician. I always said that charm and the acuity of your mind were wasted under the collar."
"I'm quite happy where I am."
Gilles stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. "Come now, Theophorus. You can't say you don't envy me."
Theo's beard was shorter than Daniel remembered it being, cut close to his cheeks, accentuating their hollows and the recesses of his eyes. "What's to envy? Scorned and rejected by your brethren, a grasping old pederast without love or comfort?"
"It's clear to everyone that where envy and malice are, there charity is not. Such feelings outstrip fornication and adultery, for these go no farther than he who performs them," Gilles said, slowly, musingly, "but the tyranny of envy has overturned entire churches, and has destroyed the whole world. Envy, or so I've heard, is the mother of murder."
Theo shook his head slightly, though his eyes did not stray from Gilles. "Nothing is worse than what you revel and indulge in, and you know that better than anyone. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want."
Gilles tapped his index finger against his upper lip. Glancing between the two men, Daniel realized that they were each enjoying the conversation, volleying recrimination and theology at each other.
Flushing, Theo leaned forward. "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. All of which, I'm certain, you've accomplished." Theo lowered his voice, and Daniel recognized the tone; it was the one he used to conclude sermons and "I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Gilles nodded along as Theo counted the flesh's works off on his fingers; at some, he smiled more widely, at others, he pressed his lips together and looked entirely grave. "Of course," he said. "Whence the envy. Yours is a restless soul, Theophorus. You know that, I know that all too well."
Theo leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms loosely. "There is the greatest necessity for observing the order of reason in this matter -"
Daniel smiled, remembering Gilles' capitulation to love and abandonment of reason. Theo's eyes flickered over to him, and in the pause, Gilles leaned forward and spoke. "Precisely. If anything is done against the dictate of reason's ordering, it will be a sin. But what if reason dictates the madness of love? Is that sinful?"
Tipping his seat forward, Theo shook his head, just once. Daniel saw Theo's face shut down, saw the pleasure drain away and heard the hardness come back into Theo's voice. "They who have committed sodomy with men or brutes are as murderers, wizards, adulterers, and idolaters."
Gilles, too, must have sensed the change. He sat up straighter and reached, briefly, for Daniel. "Call off your harridan, at least."
Theo touched his mouth, then the rim of his collar. "Inez?" His smile shrank down, becoming something tighter and more private.
"Do you have more?"
"I advise several sisters," Theo said. "And there is, of course, Joan."
Daniel watched as Gilles' hands tightened into fists and his expression hardened. Gilles sat forward and said in a low and careful voice, "We don't speak of her, never her. Of your habited whore, however -"
"Inez is an example to all her sisters. You'd do well to remember that."
"She is a fool, a nasty queen, a slut, a vixen, and a scold."
Theo inclined his head and took a long, audible breath. "You're in no position to judge."
"Call her off."
"You seem to think that I -" Theo slid his hands from the desk. "I have no such power over her."
Gilles began to laugh, the sound loud, barking, humorless, and Daniel studied the floor.
"Indeed," Theo continued, "the only enthralled whore is present here. Daniel -"
Daniel blinked, believing for a moment that he saw the grain of the pews and worn corners of the hymnal covers. He raised his head and forced himself to meet Theo's eyes.
They were as blue as ever, deep-set in Theo's pale face, and they narrowed as Theo smiled at him and spoke soothingly. "Know that we are ready to help you again. Whenever you come to your senses and wish to return, we will welcome you back."
"I don't think I'm a whore," Daniel said. Beside him, Gilles' chair squeaked, but Daniel could not look away from Theo.
"And those clothes? Your jewels. I suppose you've never knelt for them, never opened your legs."
Daniel's skin froze, broke, and froze again as he sat motionless. "No. Not like that."
"It is childish to admire excessively dark or green stones, and things cast out by the sea on foreign shores, particles of the earth. For to rush after stones that are pellucid and of peculiar colors, and stained glass, is only characteristic of silly people, who are attracted by things that have a striking show."
Theo's voice droned like the recordings of organ music he played when travelling to suburban churches. Daniel shrugged. "There are far worse things," he said, "than being childish."
"Precocious boy you have," Theo said to Gilles, then turned his eyes back on Daniel. "Never attempted to trade your body for comfort and safety, then?"
Theo spoke of that afternoon in the last pew, of Daniel's foolish grab for affection and Theo's own eventual, mocking rejection.
"Never like that," Daniel said. "And those who do such things -"
"Are whores."
"Are to be helped."
At that, Theo finally looked away and Daniel stood up, placing his hand on Gilles' shoulder. "You're not what you pretend to be. I should have known that."
*
"Quiet tonight. So quiet and so sweet a style," Gilles said over dinner.
"It's strange. I can say anything while you're touching me," Daniel said. "But other times, it's impossible. No words, nothing to say."
Gilles set down his napkin and ran his hand through his hair as he tipped back his chair. "You should speak easily."
"I guess."
Daniel was different when Gilles touched him, charged with hunger and desperate to make noise. Language then was never the dense, inert thing it usually was, but fast as wind and just as bright. But usually - now - he was stuck before words, chips of marble and ice in his chest and throat, stopping him to silence.
He looked at Gilles, saw the vivid tan and network of lines around his eyes and the hair sticking up every which way, and smiled. Sometimes, most of the time, Gilles seemed younger than Daniel felt. Looser, more brazen.
"Grave eyes," Gilles said softly and the phrase made Daniel think of cemeteries, the blank gazes of marble angels guarding the crypts. People here died with great style, and their funerals were parade and celebration. In the cemeteries, however, everything stilled except for the whisper of Spanish moss. "Graver boy."
Daniel met Gilles' gaze and tried to smile.
Cemeteries, he thought, and spirits infecting the corpses. "Does Joan really kill demons?"
Gilles frowned as he pushed away his plate and picked up his wineglass. "Of course. It's not a myth."
"Like that one, the first night we met?" Daniel asked. He could still see the malformed face and ragged teeth, then the explosion of greenblack ash.
"Like that one. She has a sacred duty."
"She's a nun?"
Gilles laughed. "Joan? Hardly. Just a girl."
"And you were her father?"
Gilles squeezed shut his eyes and turned his face away. Flattening and paling, his lips nearly disappeared. "Yes."
Daniel had heard all of this; he knew that Gilles had taken Joan in, showed her how to fight. Lost her, and blamed himself for that. Thought of himself as earthly and ghostly father both. Daniel shook his head now; he should be more careful when he did speak. He should have been able to predict the effects it would have on Gilles.
"I -"
"It's all right," Gilles said, surprising Daniel. The grief that had been tightening his face vanished. Daniel sat up and straightened his shoulders. "It's all right."
Gilles could have been reassuring himself, but he was looking straight at Daniel as he leaned back and reached for Daniel.
When Daniel settled on his lap, Gilles pressed his face into Daniel's hair, lips on Daniel's ear. "Promised to tell you anything," he whispered. "Remember?"
"Yes," Daniel said. "I remember -"
"Then *believe* it. Please."
*
Daniel knew Gilles' stories better than his own. They were, first, *stories*, full of characters and reversals, shifting locales and overbrimming emotions, while his own memories were paler. Smaller, haiku rather than fairytales. A tree struck by lightning, the old monk who drowned in the river, a certain haunted expression on a woman's face.
He practiced, however, as he walked the city, practiced watching what he passed, turning experience into story half a moment after it happened. He tried to narrate events to himself, find just the right words so he could tell Gilles when he returned to the loft.
Gilles claimed to like Daniel's stories, fragmentary and odd as they were. His glasses would slip down his nose as he listened and his eyes would move slowly back and forth, as if Daniel's face was a manuscript page or a tray of jewelry.
Daniel was telling him about the little girl who dropped her change-purse and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, head tipped back, screaming at the sky. Gilles nodded seriously as the story, such as it was, trailed to its end.
"What is it?" Daniel asked. He wondered if he should feel embarrassed.
Blinking slowly, as if he was waking from a dream, Gilles said, "Nothing."
"Are you sure?"
Gilles smiled with half his mouth. "Very sure. Finish your story."
"That's the whole of it," Daniel said. "I - I kept walking."
He lived, inhabited his body, insofar as Gilles watched, touched, talked to him. Daniel could not decide if this was right; surely he ought to live as himself, whether or not Gilles was present. He would have liked to know what it was like for other people, Abel and Inez and Father Theo and Joan. They lived, for the most part, alone, untouched, without anyone to regard them. They might be lonely monsters, deformed and less than whole, or he might be the monster. Fastened like a leech on Gilles, fattening on his blood and attention: one of the demons that Joan hunted and killed.
Gilles had promised never to stop looking. Daniel wondered whether the joy he felt at that was itself the monster.
He had lived without Gilles. He had thought, and moved, and spoken. That he preferred *now* to be with Gilles did not have to mean that being alone was impossible.
"Why?" he asked, early in the morning, waking to find Gilles touching him. "Who am I, that you're - that you -?"
"You should flee. There is so much sin, from here -" Gilles pressed his palm against his chest, just over the bleeding heart, "and outward. Encompassing you -" He drew his fingers, crooked into claws, down Daniel's ribs, then up again, playing the ribs as if they were the strings to a mandolin, "dear boy, and everything else."
Gilles spoke of sin as if it were a garment, tapestry-heavy and endlessly unfolding, or an element, weaving through the air. Like wind, a localized storm, which he had once raised but which now mastered him.
Sin was, when Gilles spoke of it, like alcohol, both intoxicating and cleansing.
Perhaps it was like music. Invisible, but influential, screeching or soothing.
"Not fleeing," Daniel said, and it did not occur to him that his questions, fragmentary as they were, had gone unanswered.
*
"We'll have a party," Gilles said. He had been pacing beside his worktable, muttering charms and incantations that refused to take. "For Joan's birthday, and for you."
"I don't need a party."
Gilles grasped both of Daniel's hands and pulled him into the center of the room. "You'll meet friends, and dance, and all shall take hands, til that the conquering wine has steeped our sense in soft and delicate Lethe -"
By now, Daniel was laughing; Gilles looked excited, nearly ecstatic, smiling widely and crooning the final phrases. He darted in, kissing Daniel with hot, open mouth, then swung away; he spun them faster and began singing.
"Come, thou monarch of the vine, Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne! In thy fats our cares be drown'd, With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd: Cup us, till the world go round, Cup us, till the world go round!"
Daniel stumbled to keep up, his hands going sweaty in Gilles' grip as they circled faster and faster and Gilles' song ended on a long, high note.
"We'll have a party, then," Daniel said, hiccuping, laughing, as they careened dizzily against each other and Gilles gasped into his hair.
"Excellent choice."
Gilles held the party on the roof because, as he said, there were too many people with grubby hands he did not trust, who might molest his books. "Not to mention you," he added, and caught Daniel's hand before his slap could connect. The freight elevator went all the way to the roof, and he barred its entrance to the loft and lower floors.
On the roof, a lacy network of tiny golden lights wove along the edges and between larger freestanding globes that studded the open space. Two bars flanked the dance floor in addition to three food stations - a roasting pig, a narrow table for a sushi chef, and a long banquet crowded with cheese and vegetables. Music throbbed and cascaded from speakers studding the floor.
"Sound familiar?" Gilles asked, circling his arms around Daniel's waist and pulling him close.
Daniel listened. The music *was* familiar, memories of beats and bridges he had spun, brought back to life. "How -?"
"Recorded you," Gilles said. "Every night, well before we met."
The music he played, Daniel had thought, was momentary. Ephemeral as breaths, spinning out into the club, then vanishing as soon as the next beat arrived. Hearing it again, as if it was new, was strange. Like moving among friendly ghosts.
"Wow -" Daniel turned and Gilles smiled. "Thank you."
When he worked at the club, Daniel *saw* the celebration, but he was alone in his booth, apart. This party, however, was unbounded and he moved through it, part of it, caught up in it.
Joan arrived with two friends in tow, a redhead her own height and a taller girl with long brown hair that seemed almost too much for her delicate frame.
Denizens of the club jumbled with people Daniel recognized from his errands, with waitresses from Gilles' favorite restaurants and clerks from the shops he frequented.
Abel wore burgundy trousers and a filmy black shirt and snapped his fingers, producing a camellia, damp with dew, that he tucked behind Daniel's ear.
Daniel danced with Joan and her friends and tried to duck her dares to kiss the redhead. When Joan bent his arm behind his back and pushed him at the shy girl, her lips tasted like beech-bark and rainwater and her nose bumped his painfully.
Mick never arrived; one moment, he was simply *there*, materializing out of the jostling crowd at the bar while Daniel waited for his drink.
"Hello," he said gruffly, touching Daniel's elbow. Mick looked handsome, his shirt soft against Daniel's arm, its fabric nearly as pale as Mick's skin. "Seen Joan?"
"Yes," Daniel said. He tasted his drink and grimaced. Not his drink; this was blood, chilled and runny, and it tasted horribly of the brass bowls he'd had to clean with his tongue for a week at New Drepung as punishment. He handed the glass to Mick. "I think this is yours."
Mick's mouth opened as Daniel wiped his lips. "You know -?"
Daniel nodded and found his glass of wine. "Not stupid."
When Mick smiled, his face changed; he looked like a child, younger even than Daniel.
He danced, and drank, and glimpsed Gilles, occasionally meeting him at the edge of the dance floor, kissing him gratefully. He next saw Joan on a low couch, half-wrapped around Abel and laughing with her friends. Abel alternated nuzzling at Joan's neck and pulling flowers from the air, charming them into birds, and the canaries into gold coins that pattered against the floor.
"He likes getting his hands on anything that's Jilly's," Joan said, untangling herself from Abel and lifting his hand from her waist. "Hey. Are those my jeans?"
Daniel touched the seam of his pants; they were his favorite, and he'd worn them since Gilles' disappearance. "Maybe?"
Joan clapped and grinned. "You can wear my clothes! Take off your shirt, we'll trade -"
Daniel glanced around, then uncertainly back at Joan.
"Yes," Abel said, leaning in. "Let's see what's so precious, shall we?"
Ignoring Abel, Joan said, "Don't be silly." She pulled off her shirt, and her bra was black, lacy, almost too small for her tanned breasts. Daniel dropped his eyes and, cursing, Joan tossed the shirt at him. "Come *on*, little brother."
Abel smirked at him, but Joan was still laughing, and her friends were, too. Holding her shirt between his knees, Daniel unbuttoned his own and shrugged it off. "Here -" he said, handing it over.
She reached for it, too far, and grazed the ring in his nipple. A charge shot through his groin and Daniel felt the matching heat on his face.
"Ooops?" Joan said, then touched the ring again, lifting it and tugging gently. "Don't worry, I've got a couple, too."
Daniel looked at her breasts, the swells of flesh over the lace of her bra, but saw nothing like rings.
"Further down," Joan said, pulling his shirt on but leaving it unbuttoned. "You can touch 'em if you want. Fair's fair."
"No, thank you -"
Joan's shirt was gauzy, far lighter than his own, and as he moved away, the girls' laughter tinkling behind him, Daniel felt as weightless as the fabric and the time of the party, flowing and difficult to grasp.
Guests spoke to him, some whose faces he recognized - Esteban, the dark sailor who received Daniel's deliveries three, sometimes four times, a week and who tonight looked much better rested than Daniel had ever seen - and some who seemed to know him without ever having been introduced.
Daniel padded through the party, letting it pulse and sweep around him, looking without much hope for familiar faces.
Gilles leaned one shoulder against the wall, his wineglass dangling from two fingers, shaking his head at something Abel had said. "Really, you overreact."
"That's what I'd hoped," Abel said. "Merely a trifle, then?"
"Of course."
"Then you'll meet Lavelle? You'll love him - far closer to your ideal than the strange, pale *mute* one you've got now."
Gilles finished his wine and smiled. "Show him to me."
Abel turned, his eyes intent on the crowd. Then he began to smile as his fingers danced at his sides. A figure emerged, brightening and sharpening out of the dark mess of the crowd. He was nearly as tall as Gilles, probably almost as handsome as Abel had once been, his dark hair curling against his neck, his wide black eyes fastened on Gilles and Abel. His skin was golden against the night, his shoulders wide and hips narrow; he grinned and Daniel felt himself smiling back, though no one knew he was present.
"You see?" Abel murmured as the young man approached them.
"Oh, yes," Gilles said. "I certainly do."
He moved away, turning, weaving through the people, and saw Father Theo leaning against the corner of the elevator shaft.
Unlike the others, he looked neither celebratory nor all that happy. His collar shone silver against the tan of his throat and he gripped the stem of his wineglass tightly.
"Daniel. There you are," he said. Theo's cheeks were darkly flushed. "Lovely, lovely party."
Theo was very drunk, Daniel realized, and it made his voice harder and more precise than ever.
"Yes," Daniel said. "Thank you."
Theo looked him over, and Daniel held himself still, wondering just what it was that Theo saw. What he was looking for. "Secular debauchery has its advantages," Theo said, lifting his glass and draining it before reaching out and touching Daniel's shoulder, then the base of his neck. "Gilles is a terrible but very lucky man, that old catamiting cankerworm."
Someone grabbed Daniel from behind, laughing like water in his ear. Joan, rescuing him again. "No demons or crosses here," she said, pulling him back out of Theo's reach. "Go away, Ted."
Theo drew himself up and narrowed his eyes. "You're drunk, girl. Probably feeling other things as well. Does Sister Inez know where you are?"
"Doubt it," Joan said, tickling Daniel. "Which means she's all yours tonight. Why don't you go find her?"
A couple ran past them, between Joan and Theo, the woman clutching at her wig as it slid off the back of her head, her pursuer shrieking at her to stop.
"Madmen, all of you," Theo said.
"It's a *party*," Joan said. "Madness is the joy of it. Now go."
Theo straightened the placket of his shirt and fussed a moment with his collar. "To leave you in your madness, t'were my sin: I will not."
Joan shook her head and laughed harder. "Fools cure not mad folks, Ted."
"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a boy's love, or a whore's oath."
"Fuck off." She spun Daniel away, still laughing. "Prick. Guy's got way more than Inez's eight-incher up his ass. That, or he *needs* something more."
He lost Joan in the press of the dancers, but found her friends back on the couch they'd occupied with Abel. The redhead rubbed her nose and smiled ruefully when she saw him; the other girl held one of Abel's charmed canaries in her hands and whispered to it.
He was tired, and he'd certainly had too much wine. The music pierced through him, streamers drawn on blunt steel needles, and Daniel wavered a little on his feet as he descended the stairs to the loft.
Joan's voice carried through the stairwell and Daniel slipped off his shoes so he wouldn't be heard. "No way - can you imagine *me* saddled with a kid?"
A deeper voice replied; Daniel stood outside the door to the loft and listened, but could not make out what it said.
"You know what happened last time," Joan said. "Imperfect's what we're doing. Back way or mouth, your call."
He slid his key into the lock and pulled the door open as quietly as he could before slipping inside. While lights and noise swarmed the roof, the loft was as dark and silent as night ought to be. Daniel dropped his shoes beside the door before locking it again.
The curtains to the bed were drawn, but at the farthest corner, they did not meet; he meant to slip through them and lie down on the bed.
He found, as he stepped through the crack, Gilles and the golden-skinned boy - Lavelle - already there. Lavelle's shirt was off, and he lay sprawled across the foot of the bed, his fly half-open, an arm across his eyes, his other hand tickling his own chest.
On the edge of the bed, Gilles sat with his back to Lavelle, head in his hands, fists in his eyes, his own clothes twisted and wrinkled.
"You'll not tell Abel?" he asked and for a moment, Daniel was confused enough to think that Gilles was speaking to him.
"Man, don't worry about it," Lavelle said, his voice thick and slow with both wine and the drawl, at once French and Spanish, of Verona Beach natives. "Long as someone coughs up the ducats, my lips are sealed. Or -" His head rolled to face Daniel and he smiled as slow as his voice. "Wide open, as the case might be. Hi, darling."
Gilles raised his head. When he saw Daniel, his mouth opened and it was a black, empty hole.
"Hello," Daniel said. Layers and currents of emotion and temperature writhed through him, fear and heat and pity at the sight of Gilles, and curiosity about Lavelle and cold. "I - I wanted to lie down."
Lavelle sat up on one elbow, twisting, and all Daniel could think of were sweet, sticky things, toffee and candy apples and sunbathers coppery and somnolent.
"Bought you a friend," Gilles said, his eyes dropping and lips twisting together.
Lavelle laughed as he looked Daniel over. His smile was wide, friendly, teasing as if this sort of thing always happened.
Daniel moved to Gilles' side, touching his hair. "Friends aren't purchased, are they?"
"This one is," Lavelle said and pulled himself up, pushing his hair off his forehead.
"But -"
"Trust me. I know the difference."
"Between what?"
"Fucking and friends. You could be my friend. Right now, though, I'll fuck you well. You'll be happy, I'll enjoy it, and be paid well for my pleasure. Fair game all around."
Heat billowed and raged through Daniel when he heard Lavelle promise to fuck; it was a word used promiscuously, everywhere he went, but he associated it with Gilles, with need and hunger.
The currents streaming through Daniel did not mix, but contended with each other. The viscous heat, studded with grit and nettles, glowed when he looked at Lavelle. When he looked at Gilles, the streams were faster, smoother, chillier, rapids of feeling that ran choppily through the center of him. The first was bright and hot, all sweat and sunblock and candy, clinging to his skin, but he could bathe and be free of it. But the second, Gilles, was environment and presence, inescapable, impossible to imagine absent.
Daniel sat on Gilles' knee, arm around his waist, facing Lavelle. Gilles kissed his hair, his ear, his neck, all hungrily, as if starving and half-convinced Daniel was just an illusion.
"I can make my own friends," Daniel told Gilles, then kissed him on the mouth. Gilles kissed him back, fanning the waves and riptides of cold and hot tangling through Daniel. "You said so yourself."
"One ahead of the old man, then," Lavelle said, taking Daniel's hand. "And if you can get it up, you'll have him beat in two."
Against him, Gilles shook, rolling his forehead against Daniel's neck.
Daniel already knew the answer, knew the look on Gilles' face when he had first seen Lavelle, knew what it meant to find them on the bed together, but he asked anyway. "You and he?"
Gilles did not answer, but tightened his hold around Daniel's waist. Lavelle laced his fingers through Daniel's and tugged gently.
"Said he wanted to," Lavelle said. "Willing, but his flesh was weak. Soft as dough."
Gilles was trembling harder now as he tipped back his head and muttered angrily, "Do it. Go on. Screw the boy, love him more. Make me watch, expose me to my shame."
Cold now, shaking in time with Gilles, the only warm part of Daniel was his palm against Lavelle's. "Don't watch. Enjoy, and perform."
"No." Gilles shut his eyes and turned his face away.
The tendon of his neck stood out like a buttress, tight and arcing, and Daniel found the words he needed to say. He kissed Gilles' cheek, then the side of his mouth. "Yes. Tell me, how many sins are there?"
"Countless. Sandgrains on every beach."
"And how many loves?" Daniel drew his hand up the middle of Gilles' back. "How many?"
Gilles shook his head and Daniel shivered, feeling Lavelle draw closer, push a warm palm under Daniel's shirt, up his back.
"Gilles," Daniel said. "Look at me?"
Gilles slowly, finally, turned his head. Daniel pulled away from Lavelle's questing hand and wrapped both arms around Gilles' neck, kissing a line up his throat, over his chin, and finally his mouth as he shifted and squirmed until he straddled Gilles' lap.
The kiss warmed Daniel and slowed Gilles' trembling.
"Thousands of loves," Daniel said. "Yours, deep as it is, is not endangered by a night's love for him."
"Show me," Gilles whispered, and again. "Show me?"
"Only with you."
Lavelle wrapped his arm around Daniel's shoulder and kissed Gilles' neck. Grinning, he asked, "Tell me, what wants me here, to work delight?"
Lavelle's skin tasted of coconut and old butter, left too long on the counter, and he moved differently than Gilles. His hips rocked more smoothly, and he whimpered like a cat rather than grunted when Daniel mouthed a figure-eight over his chest. Anatomy was a generalization, a category composed of facts, while sensation, Daniel began to realize, was particular and eccentric.
Over Lavelle's skin, Daniel's mouth ran like children through a summer shower, skipping and circling. Whenever he kissed Gilles, knelt before him or took him deep inside, it was more than play, it whirled him out of Kansas.
Lavelle worked his way between Daniel and Gilles, one leg hooked through Daniel's, and Daniel watched, captivated by the sight of Gilles kissing someone else, by his familiar hands on new skin. He knew, could feel as half-present memories, just what Gilles' touch and kiss felt like. Lavelle wriggled around and kissed Daniel deeply, hand playing over Daniel's chest, toying with the nipple-rings, weaving sensation as shockingly novel as it was welcome. He opened his eyes, watching Gilles watching back, his gaze intent and sharp, then felt Gilles' wide hand on his hip, pulling him closer. Daniel wrestled with Lavelle, spread over him in a squirming blanket, too many hands to track moving over him. Pinning Lavelle, laughing, Daniel nipped at his chin and Gilles' hand never left the small of his back as Gilles' fingernails dug in searing half-moons.
"Hold him down?" Daniel asked Gilles, less for the help than to play with both men at the same time. "With me?"
Chuckling slightly, almost nervously, Gilles shook his head. "He's a professional. Tell him."
The expanse of Lavelle's skin kept drawing Daniel in. Gilles' tattoos told stories, snagged attention and held it, while Lavelle's tan was unmarked, taut and dark, his chest rising rapidly. Pushing one shoulder down, Daniel pulled back until Lavelle went still. His eyes were black and huge, his face flushed, and Daniel could not be sure that he was feigning any of this, especially not as Lavelle's swollen lips parted and *want*, clear and hot as a geyser, shot through Daniel. He *wanted* - everything. Wanted to taste every inch of him, wanted to make him shake and cry out, wanted Gilles to help and see and *be* there.
"Go on, little boy," Lavelle drawled. "Try me."
Kneeling between Lavelle's legs, Daniel nodded slowly, returning the teasing smile and pressing Lavelle's shoulder more firmly down. Lavelle turned his head, first to the left, where he kissed Gilles, then to the right, biting and licking Daniel's wrist as he lifted his hips so Daniel could pull down his jeans. The mattress shifted and Lavelle whimpered, and Daniel realized that Gilles was behind him now, hands on his chest, fingers strumming the rings and opening his fly, breath coming hot and loud in Daniel's ear.
So much contact everywhere, constant charges running over his skin, two games playing at once - the one with Lavelle, wanting and teasing, and the one with Gilles, pretending not to worry and determining to enjoy - and Daniel leaned forward, kissing Lavelle, unable to go very long without tasting him, all toffee-rich and sticky, tickling his upper thighs and the patch of trimmed, rough hair until Lavelle's hips bucked and he groaned into Daniel's throat.
None of the compulsive hunger to *learn*, to strip away skin and discover; instead, Daniel felt as if he were playing. Wading in the surf of a new beach, spotting shells and kicking up water. With Lavelle, it was another sort of hunger, not for life and sustenance, but for a second dessert, a chocolate bar merely because it tasted good.
Gilles' chest slid and stuck against Daniel's back as they moved together; he did not resist when Daniel took his hand and put it on Lavelle's cock, smiling at the hiss and thrust Lavelle responded with. He wanted to stay here, trapped and tangled up between them, Lavelle's hand on his own cock, Lavelle's sweat and Gilles' spit in his mouth, Gilles' bulk pushing and groaning against him.
"Watch," he said, twisting around, seeking Gilles' mouth. "Want to make him shout, want to suck him off."
Gilles' face was twisted, shining with sweat, and he grunted, pulling Daniel even tighter against him.
"Play in front of you, delight your eyes," Daniel continued. Shame was the knife's blade Gilles held to his pleasure, sharpening it, threatening to kill it. "You want to see. You need to watch and debauch your sight."
Groaning, lips working, Gilles nodded and pushed Daniel's head down, hand splayed in his hair, as he yanked Daniel's hips back and up. Daniel kissed the hot, sweat-damp skin of Lavelle's inner thighs, parting them and kissing higher as Gilles tracked his mouth down Daniel's spine in a thick, wavering, ever-hotter line that concentrated the sparks and bursts of hunger into a single twisting, dense vine stretching from his mouth to his ass.
Wet mouth, wetter fingers, over his ass, teasing and spreading him, as Daniel gnawed at the crease of Lavelle's hip and squeezed his balls; he danced in place to the whistles and grunts rising off the bed, strung between want and need.
"He likes this, doesn't he?" Laughter in Lavelle's voice as Daniel swallowed around his cock, then held still, his tongue pulsing and twisting around the shaft. "You've taught him well."
Gilles did not reply for several moments. Lavelle was, Daniel suspected, trying to include Gilles, inviting him further into the game.
"Taught him nothing," Gilles said at last and began moving his fingers inside Daniel again. "He's perfect, always was."
Daniel's mouth played over Lavelle's body and he knew that most love was ephemeral, that Lavelle was temporary, but that didn't mean any of this was trash.
Gilles worked three fingers inside Daniel, making him gasp and jerk back his head. "Love him more," Gilles hissed again. "Teach me my error and reason's grace."
"Baby boy," Lavelle said, hips rocking to meet Daniel's mouth as his hand guided Daniel's head back down. "Little baby cocksucker. So *good* -"
He drew out his attention to Lavelle's cock, breaking each rise toward pleasure by changing direction, slowing his pace, exploring some more. This love, because it *was* love, obsessive and delighted, was temporary, but his body could not believe that. It lived now, only in the present, and it sought more and more joy.
"My filthy little fucker," Gilles murmured, pulling his fingers out, emptying Daniel to a yearning ache. Daniel stilled, starting to raise his head, and Gilles smacked him, two times, then again. The pain, red-bright, arched his back and pushed him against Gilles' groin. "Don't stop. Revel in your filth, suck the whore dry. Try him till he breaks. My boys, to suck, to suck, the very whore to suck, such an unwholesome food." Under his words, the wet squeak and slap of hands on flesh, and then Daniel grunted, squirmed, against the always-overwhelming pressure of Gilles' cock against his hole.
Mouth stretched open, hollowed around Lavelle's shaft, and now his hole breached, reformed into something thin, black, and pulsing, one size too small for Gilles' cock, and Daniel was pushed-pulled between the two, not enough air and so much burning sensation everywhere.
"Eique angelum tuum sanctum députa custódem: et quorum quarúmque córpora hic sepeliúntur, ánimas eórum ab ómnibus absólve vínculis delictórum -" and at the Latin, Daniel knew that Gilles was *here*, playing and participating. Blasphemy was his game, as discovery was Daniel's, and Lavelle writhed and groaned under the doubled pressure, cursing in counterpoint to Gilles' chants.
Gilles thrust deeper yet, pulling Daniel's hair, and Lavelle stiffened, then cried, his voice high and breaking as a terrified child's. His come spattered over Daniel's mouth and cheek as Lavelle sank back and Gilles yanked Daniel up to his knees, twisting his head and scouring his face clean with teeth and tongue.
"Get him off. Swallow him, and be honored to do it -" Gilles ordered Lavelle and Daniel was contorted, twisted in Gilles' arms, the shaking boy flattening himself and burying his head between Daniel's legs. "Swallow him down like a great pin -"
Suction and pressure on both sides, too much, so much, and Daniel shook against Gilles. The game was doubled, the play with Lavelle and the pretense with Gilles, and Daniel stretched, his spine incandescing, twisting more. Over Gilles' shoulder, he glimpsed a figure standing by the open curtains.
One figure, but two bodies; two dark heads, white faces with red mouths, watching. Theo, and Inez behind him, her mouth on his ear and her hand inside his open fly. Twins - long handsome faces and arching brows and matching expressions of hunger and revulsion - twined together.
Grunting, lapping and twisting his head, Lavelle swallowed hard, Daniel's cock pushing into the hot pressure of his throat, and Gilles shoved Daniel's hips down as he thrust up. Hot mercury flooded Daniel's spine and as he came, his bones rattled like flatware and his head threw itself back and he lost sight of the watchers.
When he opened his eyes again, they were gone. Lavelle knelt in front of him, holding him and Gilles at once, and Gilles was kissing Lavelle, sucking Daniel's come from his mouth, and flashes of sheet lightning and arctic wind warbled in and out of Daniel's body.
Daniel dozed in Gilles' arms, Lavelle against him, snoring slightly. He woke later, the noise from the party undiminished, and saw Lavelle standing at the foot of the bed, yanking his pants up his legs. "Such a pretty romance," he said, laughing. "You with your little boy, twined together like marriage ivy."
Gilles dug in the drawer for his wallet and pulled out several bills. "Here. Payment, and more. Like a whore, unpack my heart with words. Go."
Lavelle smiled at Daniel and shrugged as he scratched his belly. "Thanks."
Daniel stumbled out of bed and caught Lavelle's arm as he pushed through the curtains. "He's not - that is - I'm sorry."
Still smiling, Lavelle kissed his forehead. "It doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
Lavelle drew his hand down Daniel's side and squeezed his hip. "Told you I know the difference. May be a whore, but I never lie."
Daniel unlocked the elevator gate for him and watched the cage's descent, watched the top of Lavelle's head as he shrank out of sight. When he turned to go back to bed, his fingers were locked in the gate and he could not move.
"Daniel?" Gilles called. "Daniel?"
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