The heart of the charge produces the fluid that I drink. My days are spent drinking from them and storing what they give me, letting the taste of them drape over my memories. I remember the wrinkled pit nestled at the center of a peach. I remember holding it and engraving the shape of each ridgelet into my shining fingers. I remember flying into a morning glory's trumpet and resting there. I remember tossing as mountain into the air and catching it behind my back with the other hand, There's a thing called sleep. I can only know it by its name.
[ Glorifal licks away the tears of those that he watches. ]
[ He whispers into the ears that he guards. ]
So-Yang stood as though rooted, looking at the rectangle of sunlight that fell on the wall so precisely that it formed a tiny window inside of one brick. The train station was dim, opening out at both ends into the sun-flooded morning. A hole in the roof gave shape to a bar of light that pierced the air and painted the tiny rectangle on the opposite wall. So-Yang thought about the cells that had held people - all of them waiting, like seeds, for something to happen - release or death or a visitor or a piece of light coming down through a chink in the wall. Travelers stood beside her on the platform and she wanted unlock the hard air around them. She hoped that she could keep from crying that day but she knew that she would probably fail. She was as weak and unworthy as the plastic bags that held her meager groceries. The train was late. She remembered her dreams now and these drew pain out of her each day like a magnet. So-Yang couldn't make her lungs work right. They pulled like old beasts at the air. But worse than the patterns drawn with her splintered breath was the memory of the whispered call that had woken her that morning - "Come to heaven. Come to heaven." She was cold inside the June heat and she knew that she would cry that day. Her eyes began watering as the train barrelled into the station, but she drew her head up and down in a quick, small motion. The would push the tears back inside her eyes. She stepped through the doorway and saw a man sitting behind a briefcase. He stared at her jerking head but she wouldn't allow his eyes to spirit her will away. There was time enough to take the food back to her apartment before she went back to work. She would be a desert today.
When painters learned perspective, the world was suddenly different, less flat. The roundness of a bracelet seemed to circle more of the world than one's own wrist. Every minute stands open for our eyes to look through and see a different type of landscape. This is what I know. This is what I've learned. There are spaces in the sky folded around trees and buildings. I watch these spaces just like you do. I imagine going through. I want to go through. I want a lighted path between the trees. I want a clear tunnel. That is a space that ought to open out to me just as the space between two points meeting in the distance opened out to all of us as soon as the painters made it real. The sky hangs there like the world's oldest husk but when I put my hand against it what I touch is a cool skin that breathes, yes it does, and denies me all the same.
[ Glorifal flies up to the sky and is held back by the ]
[ membrane that stretches across the sky forbidding him ]
[ ...and he is so sure that it is only him...entrance ]
[ into the place that he desires and knows not a thing ]
[ about. ]
A mother. A tiny mother. A mother who looked like a funeral doll and barked orders in a harsh see-saw voice that broke each morning's quiet like an egg. So-Yang was born only a month after Mi-Yang had reached the United States. The husband that she'd come to meet had brought an electric train to a spectacular halt...falling like a broken bird through the frosty air and into the path of the thundering vehicle, leaving not much more than a stain of blood and rags before the horrified driver could finally stop. Some told Mi-Yang that he had jumped, dismayed at the prospect of making a living for the three of them. He had been pushed, said other, pushed by angry ghosts. He'd infuriated his ancestors when he'd left Korea and come to this land of devils. Mi-Yang wanted to know how it was that their own ancestors stayed at peace, leaving their descendents fat and smug in this land of noise and money. Her answer was a shrug, but shrugs were only air. Money was what had weight in the world and people helped her. Within two years Mi-Yang had opened a florist shop in the middle of downtown Atlanta. Often a man or a woman would dash in from one of the neighboring office buildings to pick up a birthday bouquet, look around the cool, quiet shop and say "I guess you aren't seeing much profit in this location," their faces pulled into sympathetic wrinkles that dissolved as soon as the purchase price popped into the cash register window. The same faces might appeared days or weeks later, innocent of surprise, to pick up a banquet arrangement or just something to take home. Mi-Yang saw so much profit after her first year that she was able to hire her cousin's son to deliver to the office buildings directly. She did not offer balloons or plastic Happy Birthdays speared into baskets of cloth blossoms. Mi-Yang specialized in elegant, formal arrangements. Roses and lilies were her specialty flowers and the creations that she displayed in the shop window were magnetic, drawing people into the calm, sparse store to find Mi-Yang working alone at a plain white table dressed in black, her hair pulled back to her nape like a housekeeper, as the flowers whispered their language into the dim, quiet air. Customers sometime saw odd things. There was Mi-Yang's pet iguana, Calliope, that lived in the store and grew to be three feet long. Then there was So-Yang's eighth-grade science project. This was series of potted cactus plants which Mi-Yang collected and brought to the store after the science fair was over. She priced each one according to size with large yellow tags - $5.95 for the smallest, $10.29 for the largest. So-Yang sometimes came to the store and sat on a high stool watching the door as customers came and went. She watched her mother cut stems and prod glamour out of a sheaf of hyacinth. She studied things, running her fingers across them. She touched the velvet petals of deep crimson roses. She pressed her fingertips hard against the strands of thin wire that Mi-Yang used to support her arrangements. So-Yang could see a clean place inside her and she could see it best when she closed her eyes and wrapped the wire tightly around her thumb or when she grasped the rose's stem in the middle where the thorn hung waiting for her. She wondered if the clean place would ever shine in the world like a pearl, revealed after the rind around her heart finally dissolved. Mi-Yang never let her daughter stay in the store very long. She said it distracted her from work to have So-Yang there watching everything like a big hungry bird and the customers didn't like it either. She thought So-Yang should be at home studying or out with friends. So-Yang trudged through the years in school making good grades and allowing her brain to remember nothing. She turned away friends. She stayed out of trouble and out of sight. It became important to her to do without. She couldn't explain this yearning to her mother. She turned away food, a car, money. The pearl inside of her was the only thing that she wanted to own and as she planned for the day when she would roll her pearl across the sky, all other knowledge, all other possessions seemed distractions. It became difficult for So-Yang to sit across the table from mother at dinner. She ate almost nothing and they spent hours in quartz-like silence broken only by Mi-Yang's violent tears and her pleading questions. What could she do to please her? What did she want after all? And So-Yang simply saying, night after night, that she didn't want to grow soft and weak in this land.
"You speak like a stranger," said her mother.
Her tears taste like licorice.
[ Glorifal has a lesson to learn. ]
[ His tongue is his teacher. ]
So-Yang had the same dream every night the week theat she turned nineteen. In the dream, her father leaned down over her as she lay stretched out is a box that could have been a crib or a coffin. She couldn't tell if she was grown or still an infant. She couldn't feel her body around her. Her father set a rose down beside her still body and he breather across her skin. He smelled like the ocean. When she woke up, her skin was damp and she knew that her father had licked her as clean as a mother cat licks her kittens. His voice whispered to her to go out into the wilderness. "Find the desert," it said, and though she didn't know where the desert was, she left the next day. Mi-Yang arrived home to an orb of silence revolving around a note that said "Gone now." For six months after that, money arrived inside a plain security envelope, the green bills whispering "I'm still here" from inside. There was never a return address. This was all that So-Yang could think of to say. Words fell away from her now like everything else that she'd ever possessed. She lived in one room and worked eight hours a day in a factory so that she could send her message home each month. She waited to see what she needed to do next. She waited in her room at night, cold because there was heat but only if she wanted to turn it on. She waited at work. She was silent, rejecting the kindness of the women who worked beside her. She needed to be alone so she could wait better. She lived in a city with so many other people and none of them knew her, but this couldn't matter. She lived in a city which was no city - it was a desert. She needed to know what her soul looked like and the city was her mirror.
Her tears taste like other things too. I know what to say to them but I can't make the words myself. I formed the words that I spoke to her from the taste of her skin, from the tears washing her skin. She wants the salt in the ocean. She wants to feel loneliness in her pores, digging into her like grains of sand. She whispered to me and told me the words that would make her safe. I imagine others like me living beyond the boundary of the sky's thick peel. I think of them, those others, moving around over there, making their own words...making things. I want to be an artist. I want to make my own words and feel a real skin around me again.
[ But there is a real tongue that glides across the face. ]
She worked in a factory that manufactured dolls. The dolls were large pink plastic with floating blue eyes and painted red mouths full of tiny white teeth. Each doll that she worked on was furnished with a soul. Her job was to fix the head if the doll to its body and make sure that it was secure. Before she fit each head on, she greased her fingers with the vaseline that sat next to her and smeared the inside of the head. Other women did the same job. They also used vaseline, but each morning So-Yang spit into her jar. She breathed into the head before attaching it and then let it go.
What is it I'm supposed to do for them? I can't save them from anything.
[ He has been here for so many years because he has to ]
[ wait to take shape again. Sometimes, his form flickers ]
[ in the light...after he's tasted them, but he won't ]
[ be solid until he knows them better, until he absorbs ]
[ their flavor and lets the memory flower inside of him. ]
She brought one of the doll heads home with her and put it on the will of her grimy, naked window. She woke up and looked at the head every morning and whispered, "Damn this life!" At night, she sat alone in her room watching the glaring overhead light suck the color out of the air and make the skin on her hands look as though it was sinking into bone - as though it was wet paper draped over wire. She thought that she would go crazy from misery and hunger and boredom, but there was something coming closer to her She could feel it but it was like a piece of paper floating unanchored at the bottom of a bureau drawer. She cried often, long and quietly so that no one would her and come to ask what was wrong. She could almost hear the voice that whispered to her. It usually repeated what she said, but sometimes it told her the words that she should say when she woke from her long, heavy sleeps - the prayer she should tell as she walked in the world. "Shrivel my heart like the center of a peach does in winter. Let me be a hardened stone against that which would invade me. Let me make my body like an ocean wave and disappear and leave behind on the sand a perfect shell, pink and glistening in the sun. Let the shell be my heart."
I want to do more than just watch this one. I want to open her up and make her safe.
[ Glorifal is young in the world. ]
[ He is brave and an idiot. ]
A day came when So-Yang felt the world breaking apart. She had dreamed the night before about her hands. Her fingers were pulling open a tightly furled rose. The petals slipped like wet silk beneath her skin and as she opened the rose, more petals sprang out from the center. She never could reach the center of the flower, but a muted light throbbed around the petals from the inside making the rose finally glow like a tiny paper lantern bobbing at the top of a treacherous green pole. The world was glowing to her that morning and she felt that her bones were breaking apart. She studied her face in the bathroom mirror, looking at it as though it were resting in front of her on a platform. A strange head. A doll's head waiting for paint. The sleek, black hair chiseled the planes of the face making it stark. The bones stretched the nearly transparent skin, struggling to break the surface like buried driftwood pushing up out of wet, ocher sand. The bones reflected the light as though polished and she realized that she was becoming a new creature, one whose bones would grow in a different way...or else disappear. Through the morning at the factory, she felt happiness like water at the back of her throat but she didn't wonder at what this meant. She felt happy for the life that she had lived and it seemed important enough that she was happy. She knew that the world was braking apart and the pieces were shifting into new positions. And then, when the lunch bell rang, she didn't follow the other women to the gray cafeteria. She didn't pull from her pocket a small orange which she would peel slowly and eat section by section staring at each piece as though it were a lesson she was trying to learn. Instead, she left the factory, got on the train and rode downtown. She stepped out into the downtown station, walked an extra block and found a place to go into and buy her lunch. She stood at a corner then, with her sandwich and drink, watching a chink of light fall at her feet, waiting for the traffic light to invite her to cross the street and enter the park where men sat on benches playing chess or stared at the air in front of them or read books or talked to each other or to themselves or to the sky. So-Yang found an empty bench. Someone had spray painted THE SUN, HE RISES in black letters on the concrete. She sat down and unwrapped her sandwich. Square slices of cheese in three different colors sat layered on a warm bullet shaped loaf. Pastel lettuce and tomato was stuffed inside and juice from the tomato leaked into the white bread dying it pale pink. So-Yang lifted one half to her mouth and bit down. The taste was overpowering, sharp and oily at once. She felt her hunger clamp down on the taste and then shove it away. Her stomach was a snake trying to swallow a mouse by slow squirming inches. So-Yang held the sandwich away, knowing that she couldn't eat it and wondering as she wrapped it back up what she ought to do. She looked around and saw a man sitting inside of a green army jacket and a pair of dirty blue jeans. He was reading one page of a newspaper that had been torn form the rest. His attention was welded to the page and he frowned over ut and nodded fiercely, saying every few minutes, "Yeah, that's true." So-Yang got up and walked to him. She stood in front of him for fifty seconds before he noticed her. His eyebrows lifted over the mirrors that shielded his eyes.
"Can I help you?"
So-Yang held out the sandwich wrapped in its oniony, oily paper.
"Do you want this? I can't eat it. I want you to have it."
The man took the sandwich and examined it, holding it up to sniff through the paper.
"Well sure," he said. "I'll take it. You want that drink there too?"
So-Yang handed the man the drink and then walked away. The man had started to say something, but instead he shrugged and started eating. So-Yang walked through the park for an hour until the dirt footpath was swallowed by a round brick tunnel. She sat down on a bench facing a murky pond that skimmed the grass like a huge coin. She watched the ducks until 6:30. Then, she walked to the heart of the tunnel and took off her clothes. She folded the clothes and placed them carefully on the ground, wedging them into the notch where dirt met brick. She lay down on top of the clothes and died at 1:45 the next morning.
[ Glorifal is young. ]
[ He can only take care of two at a time. ]
Did I make that happen? Her tears tasted soapy some of the time and they had a scent. Her tears had a scent. She tasted like raspberries and sweet apples and mint. This is what I know of her. She had the loamy taste of dirt turned over in a clean field and the crackling flavor of dried insect wings. Did I ever bring you comfort, sweetheart? You handed memories back to me. From you, I have the briny taste of oysters slipped out of their shells and onto my waiting tongue. The air at 6:00 in the morning on a quiet city street - cold and alone.
They wanted him to draw them together. They said that they were best friends. He usually asked customers to say something about themselves but these two were really tight-lipped and that was all he could get out of them. They sat on the bench, thighs pressed together, and looked straight ahead wearing faces as lively as bowls of milk, limp hands draped over stiff shoulders. Couple of dykes, thought Bostell. Not that he cared. He lettered BEST FRIENDS across the bottom of his sketchpad in flower wreathed pinks and blues. The one on the left had a long nose with a ball-shaped tip. He exaggerated the nose, smudging the chalk just a little so it wouldn't be likely to offend her. This one wore a headful of bright, blond hair falling in curls around a pinched face that looked as though all the color had been sucked out of it with a straw. Bostell exaggerated the hair too, making it look fuller and more blond than it was - figuring by the length that she was proud of it. The other woman sat at attention behind a pair of thick, round glasses. he glasses magnified her eyes so that they filled the lenses like frightened fish. He drew the glasses out of proportion and widened and lengthened the eyes. Her neck was long and fluent, rising in a silky, seamless column from her wide shoulders. Bostell made it even longer in the drawing and was careful to select a smooth brown chalk for the skin color. Her skin was warm looking and unblemished. Her hide and her neck probably pulled the most compliments. He really had a problem with their mouths. Experience had shown him a long time ago that drawing a customer without a smile was a guaranteed ticket to No Tip Island. Bostell used his tips to buy candles and art supplies and gas for his car ands when a tip did not go into the big jar labeled "College Fund" he could feel his lungs shrinking and that meant his head would pound for the entire night. He invented smiles for the two women- serene, generic smiles that he fit into the faces... hoping that they wouldn't offend...knowing that they probably wouldn't. Both the women smiled when he showed them the finished drawing. The blond one displayed a set of yellow teeth that looked as though they'd been seized by the handful from a variety bin and jammed any which way into the gums of her tiny mouth. The one in glasses allowed a gentle curve to bend across her face and she nodded her head. Bostell sprayed fixative on the drawing, took the money that they gave him and thanked them for the additional five dollars the blonde one put into his jar. The women laughed at the jar's label and Bostell laughed too, his smile dropping into his lap and slipping down to the cobblestoned floor as soon as the women turned and walked away. The label was a joke meant to boost his professional image as a fun-loving guy. He knew that he looked thirty-six, though extra flesh kept his skin plumped out, and, so far, wrinkle free. He sat back and smoked his 21st cigarette of the day. He watched tourists and shoppers filtering in and out of Underground. Mostly out. Not many people stayed downtown in the evening and it was already 5:30. Bostell's contract stipulated that he "remain available to Underground customers until 9:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday," but this was Tuesday, so he sat and smoked for thirty more minutes then packed up and left. He dropped his deposit into the night box and headed to the parking lot. Bostell's car was a blue Toyota. The driver's seat sat jacked back as far as it could go and still, at six-two and two hundred and four pounds, Bostell felt as though he were driving a skate. But the Toyota was cheap and it looked like every other car in the city. Bostell wedged the car out into traffic and began the twenty minute trip to the perimeter toward the Burger King where he ate his dinner five nights a week. He piloted the Toyota onto the interstate and soon picked up speed in the sparser traffic. A flat hum circled out of his mouth and he drummed on the steering wheel as he drove. He looked into the other cars as he passed them. There wasn't much to see that was interesting except for a family in a big white Oldsmobile. The car had a Virginia license plate and a collection of stuffed animals scattered across the top of the back seat. A man and a woman sat in front. The woman was driving and talking. The man was eating a sandwich. A pair of feet stuck up from the back, the bare toes wiggling against the window glass. Bostell passed the Oldsmobile and plucked a tape from the box nestled against his thigh. With one hand he popped it from the case and shoved it into the tape played. He could see the Burger King sign at the exit's crest and he bounced heavily in his seat as he began the approach.
I'm never too busy to stop by the way
and I've always got something pleasant to say
Bostell parked, squeezed out of the car and stalked toward the restaurant. His stomach rumbled like a dark sky. Inside, he ordered a Whopper, a fish sandwich, two large fries and a large orange drink which came in a plastic cup featuring a picture of Disney's Aladdin. Bostell sat down and lifted the cup so he could see the picture better. He looked at it hard before wiping away the drops that beaded up on Aladdin's face. Giggling erupted to his right and he turned his head to see two girls, about ten years old maybe, staring at him. They saw him looking and folded back toward each other and into the table. They shook, fists to mouths, as demons of hilarity attempted to drag the two of them beneath the seats of the booth. A tired looking man walked up with a loaded tray. Even his pony tail sagged with fatigue.
"Girls. Please. Keep it down, will you?"
"Sorry Daddy."
"Sorry Mr. Willington."
The girls were knobby, mop-headed creatures. To Bostell, they seemed identical and entirely alien, though not interesting enough to deserve much more than a glance from him. He ate his food and gazed out the window at the parking lot. The view was fine. The food was fine. In his refrigerator at home there was a case of beer, a six pack of Coke and a carton of cigarettes. Bostell didn't like the smell of food in his apartment. He finished eating and carried his tray to the big plastic garbage can nearest the door. He had to push down some of the trash already filling it to make room for his own. A blob of ketchup clung to his finger when he pulled the tray out of the stubborn flap and even after using two napkins he could smell the tomato, fell it sinking in and staining his skin. He rushed to the men's room and washed his hand furiously. Carrying the Aladdin cup, Bostell marched out the door to his car and got in throwing the cup into the back seat. He started the car and followed his route back downtown. He drove up 14th and slowed down to look at a boy - tall, slightly bowlegged, walking with his hands jammed into the back pockets of his white jeans. Blond greasy hair flipped back form the unseen face. Bostell guided the car up until he was traveling right next to the kid. A heavy-chinned face swiveled his way. Small eyes. Skin filmed over with sweat.
"Can I take you somewhere?"
"No!"
Bostell drove down Juniper and turned onto 12th. He punched the PLAY button on the tape deck, releasing the REWIND.
When they start to squirm I really get going
but only my happy face smile is showing.
Why can't they see what I'm trying to hide
I'm busting a gut laughin' on the inside.
At the corner of 12th and Winslow, Bostell saw another boy. This cone was leaning back against a telephone pole his arms wrapped back and around the dark, ragged wood. The boy's face was turned up to the dusky sky. His eyes were closed. Bostell's stomach twisted and his breath ran ragged out of his nose. The car's brakes squealed as Bostell pulled to the corner. The boy opened his eyes. Bostell leaned over and opened the passenger door, dipping his chin toward the empty seat. The kid shrugged and got in the car. He stared straight ahead as though the windshield was a movie screen. Bostell took glances, studying the details as he drove. The face was sweet, round and bored, but Bostell didn't care much about faces. What he liked was a certain silhouette and this one's body had the long opened-up lines that he liked the best. The kid looked medieval, like he'd been stretched on a rack since birth. He was wearing a baggy black t-shirt that revealed nothing but a pair of thin arms covered with sunbleached down. From the arms, Bostell predicted a smooth, golden chest - like warm plastic. The breath raced in and out of his nose, audible for a moment even over the music. The kid looked at him and then looked back at the street ahead. Along with the t-shirt he wore black basketball shoes and loose plaid shorts. The shirt was printed with white block letters that spelled out THE SUN, HE RISES.
"What's your name?"
"Tim." It was a silky voice, a little nasal and heavy with heat and boredom. "What's yours?"
"Bostell." He didn't care about inventing anything for them. He always told his real name.
"Weird name."
Bostell pressed the tape player's volume control. Tim's head started bobbing like a cork although the expression on his face didn't change. He danced in his seat as though he was strung on wires, not knowing what his body did.
They listen hard and they act like they care
How can they be so completely unaware
Of the truth the answer is always denied me
So I introduce them to the killer inside me
"You like that?"
"S'okay."
The brain damaged act was appealing up to a point but it got tired pretty quick. Bostell enjoyed some sort of reaction form them. It made it feel more like a relationship.
"There's a bottle of Stoli in the glove box...if you can stand it warm."
Time lunged for the vodka. He untwisted the cap and drank in stiff sips each one followed with a squinting grimace. Bostell guessed sixteen years old. Reaching across the dash, he flipped closed the glove box door that Tim had left hanging open. These kids were so careless. Bostell didn't like mess. His skin always smelled like soap and his hair, worn like a bowl, was clean and never stringy or uneven. His shirts were faded cotton, washed after every wearing although, each one released hints through the day of its former owner's tenancy. He bought his clothes used, but he liked to be clean and he liked it when things went back to where they belonged...like glove box doors.
Tim put his hand on Bostell's thigh. The gesture was so sudden that Bostell thought the kid was going to be sick. He looked over to the passenger side and saw Tim gazing out the front window...maybe a little more relaxed now. Bostell glanced down at his lap. The hand floated lightly on his thigh, pale and weirdly small, like a fish sinking down through dark water.
"You're okay," Tim was saying in a slow, heat-slow way. "I mean, I'm always kind of stiff with people I don't know real well. You know? I mean, I don't so this a lot.
"Do what? What is it you're doing?"
"Well. You know. Being with you and all." The boy jerked his shoulders and his eyebrows up at the same time as though they were attached to a central string running up through the top of his head. He flopped back against the seat and held the bottle up to his face.
"Shit. I oughtn't to drink this. I gotta go to school tomorrow."
"Hunnh-unnh."
"Anyway, you're okay. I like you. You're like a bear. Big, but friendly ."
Bostell smiled tightly.
"Whatever," he said.
They pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6 on the highway near downtown. Bostell parked the car at the far edge of the lot, gave Tim thirty dollars and told him to go get a room. After Tim had walked away, Bostell realized that the desk clerk wasn't going to just hand over a room key with no questions asked. He'd think Tim was some horny kid celebrating something special with his girlfriend or, more likely, would scope out what was really going on. Either way, Bostell figured that he and Tim would be back on the road soon. It had been a long time since he'd done anything in a hotel room. Tim was back in five minutes with a key.
"Did they give you any problems?"
"No. They asked to see a major credit card and when I said I didn't have one, the guy just said 'Hell. That'll be $25.00!' Guess they need the business. Here's your change, man."
They drove to the empty back lot and parked. Bostell pulled the tape deck from its cradle and stowed it in its bag. He draped the bag over his shoulder, gathered his sketchbook and pencil box and followed Tim up the stairs. The boy moved unsteadily from side to side of the iron staircase.
"Like a zipper," Bostell said.
"Hunh?" Tim was unlocking the door of the room. They stepped in. The walls, floor and furniture were all shades of the same drab green. The television was large and on wheels. The air conditioner blasted freezing air the moment Tim switched it on. It was loud. The room was fine. Tim fell backward across the bed and hoisted himself to lean against the headboard. He cuddled the bottle of vodka to his chest.
"What's that," he asked, pointing to the sketchpad Bostell carried under his arm.
"I'm an artist. You have an interesting face. I want to draw you."
Tim pulled off the bottle and shrugged.
"Whatever," he said. He turned his head to the side and picked at the bedspread. Bostell studied the gold-blond head framed in a dull green that seemed to burnish it.
"I feel like I'm walking around inside an olive, don't you?"
Tim's head swiveled around. His lip curled up at one corner. Blond, baby Elvis.
"What? Man, you are strange."
Bostell went into the bathroom and pissed solemnly without flushing. When he came out, Tim was sprawled on his stomach, naked now, his smooth gold skin tight with gooseflesh. Tim lifted his ass up into the air then flipped over onto his back and spread his lifted knees apart. He smiled at Bostell, but his body shuddered against the pressure of the air conditioner's breath. The smile was tight and small, like the body. Bostell walked over to the bed and pulled the cover and the sheets out from under the boy. He spread them over Tim and tucked him in a little at the sides.
"You need to be warm," he told the boy, speaking into his face, holding his eyes with his own. Tim smiled up at him, a real smile framed in his shining face. His body was warm in the covers, not shaking now, and smiled as Bostell put his hands around the slender neck and squeezed. The face that floated beneath him [ Bostell. Tim. Glorifal. ] looked surprised, then purple, then dead. Bostell felt remote as he masturbated across the body. It had been stupidly easy. It didn't satisfy like the kid at the pier in Savannah or the first time, visiting his mother's people in Wyoming. The wind carried the dries of the cattle out into th