The Grand Ballast (21 page)

He started to pull away, but the second he
met resistance, he lunged forward, out of his chair. He straddled
Kilroy and kissed him hard. Kilroy swiped the inside of Bode’s
mouth with his tongue. Bode attacked, shoving Kilroy’s shoulders
and then digging his nails into the hard knots of muscle, kissing
and biting, grinding himself against Kilroy.

“
You think this is a gift?”
he whispered, pulling off his shirt. “Let me show you what a gift.”
He stripped and tossed his clothes aside. Collapsed to his knees on
the floor.

Kilroy followed him, and together they
crawled and wrestled into the living room, still kissing. They hit
the leg of their new coffee table and sent its centerpiece over the
edge, onto the carpet. Bode tore at Kilroy’s clothes, and heat
flared between his legs as he heard a button pop. They pulled on
the shirt together until it ripped, until Kilroy’s skin was
exposed. They couldn’t get it all the way off, so they left it
draped over Kilroy’s shoulder while Kilroy undressed below the
waist.

Bode got on all fours. “Ride me,” he
whispered, looking behind him at Kilroy. He clenched his teeth,
sucking in air for a few seconds before opening his mouth and
letting out a rush of breath. “Ride me, you dirty fucker; ride
me.”

Kilroy’s lips parted and his eyes grew
harder, darker, and he leaned over Bode’s shoulder, teeth snatching
lightly at Bode’s ear. “You are foul, aren’t you?”

The words hooked Bode in
the gut. He was foul. He wasn’t afraid of ugliness. “Yeah.” He was
breathless. He was wet with the
idea
of pain. “C’mon. Don’t fucking
keep me waiting.
Fuck
me.”

Kilroy slung an elbow around Bode’s neck and
drew Bode’s head up, leaning down to say softly, “You think I
won’t?” He pressed his other fist between Bode’s ass cheeks and
rubbed his knuckles down Bode’s crack. “You want me to punch a hole
between your legs so big you could get ten cocks in it?” He worked
a knuckle in. Bode gasped and squeezed his eyes shut.

“
Yeah.” He panted. “Fuck,
yeah.”

Kilroy’s arm crushed his windpipe. Bode
choked for a second, then laughed as Kilroy eased the pressure.
Kilroy withdrew his knuckle, spread Bode’s cheeks, and spat. Used
his tongue to push the spit into him and then lapped around the
outside. Bode felt pierced by the jaws of a trap, his muscles
seizing around invisible spikes that pushed through fat and muscle,
into his core.

Bode moaned as he felt the glob of saliva
spill slowly down his open hole. The stretching began, more painful
than he’d imagined, painful enough to soften his erection. He
sucked in a half breath then let it out in a soft, shuddering sob.
Bowed his back and put his ass up like a dog, digging his nails
into the carpet and giving off a growl that kept snagging on
pain.

Kilroy pushed deeper and the agony was so
sharp Bode tasted bile. Kilroy’s arm wrapped around his waist,
yanking his hips back. Their bodies met with a slap, and Bode
opened his mouth, letting a groan pour out.

Kilroy thrust once, twice.

“
Hit me,” Bode
ordered.

Kilroy rode him like some kind of jester on
a stick horse, flopping and humping inelegantly, panting and
cracking Bode on the ass with his palm. Bode kept his mouth open
and let Kilroy drive all the sound out of him. This was what he
wanted, to hurt until his head clouded, until the jags of pain
pieced themselves together into a perverse ecstasy.

“
H—hurt me,” he
slurred.

Kilroy smacked his thigh, and Bode jerked
like a puppet. “How bad?” Kilroy’s low voice made him shudder,
afraid but so fucking alive.

Am I a prude? Technically proficient?
Guileless? What?

No. I’m a gift. I’m shared property. I’m
fucking foul and I love it.

“
Bad.” He ducked his head,
flexing his shoulders. The thrill of the word was enough to get him
hard again. He reached behind him, swiping Kilroy’s thigh with his
nails. “Bad, Kilroy.
Bad
.”

Kilroy pulled out. Leaned to one side and
yanked the cord of a lamp from its socket. Bode twisted and watched
as Kilroy doubled the cord into a loop.

For a second, Bode couldn’t speak. His cock
dripped, and he choked on words he couldn’t get out. Kilroy looked
at him, a question in his eyes. Bode nodded.

Kilroy whipped Bode’s leg with the doubled
cord. The shock of it kept Bode from screaming. The pain boiled in
his gut like whisky, made him sick and adrenaline-dazed.

He collapsed forward onto his elbows. He
moaned raggedly and squeezed Kilroy’s cock with his ass until
Kilroy groaned and whipped him again.

They fucked like that, a fight, a storm.
Kilroy reached around at one point to cover Bode’s mouth, and Bode
bit his hand. They were animals, and they needed to be. Kilroy
lashed Bode’s ass until the skin was tight and swollen, until it
ached every time Bode moved. Then he pushed into Bode again. Bode
sweated and heaved, shoving his wounds against Kilroy’s slick skin.
Pain became its own kind of tenderness, an answer to a world that
said there were limits, that said the body could only take so
much.

Fuck everyone, Bode thought. Whether they
chose to feel it or not, they all had splinters lodged in their
hearts, shifting every second, waiting to pierce something vital.
So why not live with the tip of a splinter touching that vulnerable
muscle—touching it without piercing? Then each heartbeat became a
dare.

Choose
me
, you fucker. Choose me over
Driscoll, or else I have no one, no one in this world who
understands how
much
I feel.

He lost track of where he was, lost track of
everything but the burn of his face against the rug, the slap of
skin on skin. He heard wild gasps and ugly words and didn’t know
whose they were. Kilroy’s cock finally slid from his ass. Kilroy
touched him. Gently now, jacking him to a climax that felt like
nothing—like the dull wringing out of a rag. Bode came in an
exhausted drizzle and leaned forward, his weight on one forearm,
his other hand wiping sweat from the back of his neck.

Kilroy tried to help him stand, but Bode’s
legs wouldn’t cooperate. He lay on the floor and shuddered,
flinching as Kilroy’s hand brushed his welted ass.

He woke facedown on the sofa, the cushion
wet with drool, a blanket over him. He was confused at first. He
sensed that something had changed, but he couldn’t remember
what.

“
Your body is a
gift.”

“
Let me show you what a
gift.”

He groaned softly, the ache sliding all
through him. A chair creaked, and he sat up to see Kilroy in the
armchair, bent over a notebook. Kilroy’s face was inscrutable. He
glanced once at Bode then returned to his writing. If Bode hadn’t
hurt so much, he’d have doubted their earlier encounter had even
happened.

He stood on shaking legs and went to the
bathroom. The carpet was itchy against his bare feet. He didn’t
feel wicked and powerful anymore. His eyes were swollen and his ass
was marked with black and purple patches, shiny red wheals across
some of the bruises.

“
Let me show you,” he
croaked at the mirror. A marble shot across his brain and clicked
against his skull. His eyes fell shut, as if he were about to go to
sleep again right there. “Let me show you what a gift.”

***

“
I have a party to attend.”
Kilroy said it casually, but with an edge in his tone that
suggested he was trying to get a rise out of Bode. He was dressed
with disarming normalcy—blue button-down and black slacks. Worn
black dress shoes, creased and dusty looking. No wild jacket or
anachronistic accessories.

Bode searched for his own
shoes and found them by the door, one on its side, a crust of mud
on the sole. So he’d been out walking again last night. He hardly
remembered anymore what he did with his time. When he wasn’t at the
theater, he was usually walking, or cleaning the apartment
compulsively. He kept thinking he ought to visit his parents, but
the idea of marbles and knitting needles was too
depressing.

“
It’s Driscoll’s birthday,”
Kilroy added.

Bode ignored the sharp
strike of fury inside him. “That’s fine. I have a rehearsal
tonight,” he lied.

“
I assumed you wouldn’t
want to go anyway.”

Bode shrugged and put on
his left shoe. “Why wouldn’t I want to meet this man who’s changing
your life?”

“
Oh, Bodeee.” Kilroy gave
him a dopey grin. “You have such trouble with this, don’t you? That
I might have more than one person who inspires me?”

Bode yanked his right shoe
on. Watched the dried mud crumble onto the floor. “Is that what I
do? Inspire you?”

“
Do you think I fuck him?
Is that what you’re imagining?”

“
I’m not imagining
anything.” Body jerked the laces tight and tied them. “I’m going
out. I’ll see you when you get home.”

“
You’re upset.”

Bode’s temper cracked. He
stood, left temple throbbing. “You’re damn right I’m upset. You
said you loved me. That you
needed
me.” He approached Kilroy, who gazed at him with
an amused sort of interest. Which only infuriated Bode further.
“You take whatever you want in the moment, and you don’t give a
sh—you don’t care how people feel.”

Kilroy clucked. “Look at
you. Even in a passionate rage, you hold back.”

“
Shut
up!” Bode shouted. They were inches apart. “Make a choice. Make a
choice right now—him or me. I can’t stand it anymore; I
can’t
stand it
!” He tried to get his breathing under control. His heart was
pounding, and there was a flood of heat in the left side of his
head, like something had ruptured.

“
Do you
realize how foolish you sound, Bode?” Kilroy’s voice was soft. “I
have a
friendship
with Driscoll. Do you expect me to give up all
contact with other people?”

Bode jerked back, stung.
No. No, he wasn’t that obsessive, that controlling. He just…it was
more than a friendship, what Kilroy had with Driscoll. He was sure
of it.

How can you be
sure
? The voice fluttered against his
skull.
How can you be sure, sure,
sure?

“
I need you not to go to
this party tonight.” Bode spoke as steadily as he could manage. Let
a genuine plea creep into his voice. “Please. Please, if it’s me
you want to be with, then don’t go.”

Kilroy turned away, no
longer looking the least bit amused.

Please. Tell me I’m right.
Tell me there’s something between you and him, and we’ll fix it.
You’ll see that you belong here, with me. That he’ll be okay
without you.

“
I told him I’d be there,”
Kilroy said flatly.

Bode went for another walk
and didn’t think about anything much. The evening sky was a light
blue-gray with pink streaks, and an orange cat padded through the
flowerbeds parallel to him.

He felt completely cut off
from the rest of the world. All these quiet houses with the lights
on in the windows, and none of the people inside knew who he was.
His parents never called.
He was hardly
ever at the Little Comet anymore. He didn’t know what he wanted to
do now that his show was over. He didn’t want to go back to cheesy
revues. But he didn’t have any meaningful ideas. Garland wasn’t
even angry with him anymore for being distracted and moody—he was
so wrapped up in Danielle he didn’t seem to notice Bode.

Eventually Bode returned home. The house was
empty.

Maybe he’s not at the party. Maybe he’s
somewhere else.

But Bode knew better.

He’s made his choice. His made it, so leave
him alone and pack your things. Move back home. No point in drawing
out this farce.

Instead he got on the computer.

He knew Driscoll lived on the west side of
town, and he knew the name of a coffee shop Kilroy had said was
next to Driscoll’s house. It didn’t take him too long to find the
address. He drove, squinting against the setting sun, feeling
surprisingly calm.

Driscoll’s house was small and tidy—light
blue with black shutters and a wrought iron fence around the front
yard. The iron was painted a shiny, flawless black. The gate was
open, and there were balloons tied to the porch rails and a banner
above the front door. People mingled in the yard, sipping punch and
eating finger food. There was a long table set up on the driveway,
a massive bakery box on it.

A few partygoers glanced at Bode as he
crossed the yard, but no one asked him who he was or what he was
doing here. What surprised him most was that this crowd hardly
seemed like one Kilroy would hang around with. The people were
dressed in sensible sweaters, unflattering pants. They looked
harmless and dull.

There was a silver car in the garage with a
license plate that read THS MMNT. The other half of the garage was
empty except for a few gardening tools and what looked like a
folded hospital cot.

Driscoll stood by the table on the driveway.
Bode wasn’t even sure how he knew it was Driscoll. But the man was
tall and lean with hunched shoulders and a haggard face. He looked
like a painting without details, an abstract idea of a sick man. He
was talking to a blond woman and coughing every few seconds into
his elbow. He had gauze taped up his arm like a decoration.