The Quirk (38 page)

Rod’s mind rocked with incredulity. He was having intercourse with the prince, defying all laws of the possible. This wasn’t going to be the simple sexual release he had promised himself it would be. He experienced a complex sensation that was a reversal of what was actually happening, as if a wedge were being driven into him that threatened to split him in two.

“I’m going to take you,” he warned roughly. “I mean, really take you so that you’ll know I’ve had you. There can’t be anything gentle about it.”

“No, darling. That was just at the beginning. I don’t want you to be gentle now.”

“I thought you don’t usually do this. Let’s look at you.” He worked them up to their knees and held his back against his chest. The prince rocked his hips slowly on him in a stunning demonstration of how deeply they were coupled. “You’ve been fucked a lot, haven’t you?”

“Yes, lover. If you must know, by just about anybody who’s wanted to, which adds up to a considerable army. It’s no great secret. I just wanted you to feel special because you are. I’m madly in love with you. I don’t expect you to take that seriously, but you’re making me very happy.”

Rod placed his hands with deliberation on one part of the prince after another in an effort to absorb the feel of the heroic body–his chest, his abdomen, his buttocks where they were joined, handling him like a precious object, wondering if the sensual thrills offered by smooth naked flesh were worth the conflicts they set up in him–the angry struggle between what he had been taught was right and the right he was establishing for himself, between the dictates of his conscience and the liberties he permitted himself to take with it, between rebellion and the stubborn residue of gentlemanly conformity that remained in him. Panic hovered at the edge of his increasingly passionate involvement with the man in his arms. Had he overlooked an inherent evil in something that felt necessary and good?

The prince pressed down against his thighs and dropped his head back and spoke with his lips against Rod’s neck. “Divine. You’re made for me, darling. Dear, God, your cock. Your cock, darling. I’ve never known such a perfect fit. I can lie back in your arms and let myself go. Oh, dear. Perhaps I shouldn’t. May I, darling? I’ve waited so long. Please, darling. Oh, my God.” He snatched up the towel and held it against himself while his body was convulsed, and Rod watched his beauty being transfigured by ecstasy. He gripped him close and waited for the spasms to subside. The body went limp, and he felt that he had come as close as he ever could to capturing whatever essence of him he could make his own. “Please don’t mind, darling. I couldn’t help it. Now I can concentrate on you.”

“I don’t mind. If you really go for it, I can stay there until you’re hard again and ready to come with me.”

“If anybody can make it happen again that qui–”

The door opened, and for an instant they were turned to stone. Rod heard a mumble of apology in French and began to breathe again. “Didn’t you lock the door?” he whispered fiercely into the prince’s ear.

“There’s no key. Jacques promised to keep–”

Rod heard a click, and they were spotlighted in harsh overhead light. He was blinded.

“My God. What a splendid sight,” a hearty French voice said.

“Let me down, darling,” the prince whispered, the words exploding against the corner of Rod’s mouth. “I’m too pretty to be ogled by the rabble.” They fell forward, and Rod covered him with his body. He heard movement in the room and a growing chorus of voices, ribald, excited, punctuated by bursts of laughter. “
Le grand
Lussigny” and “
l’américain
” kept recurring in the snatches of comment that reached Rod’s ears.

“The sons of bitches,” he muttered. “What’re we going to do?”

“Nothing, darling. Stay in me. If we don’t do anything, maybe they’ll go away. Jacques swore he’d keep everybody out.” Their lips were touching. The prince breathed his words into Rod’s mouth. Rod moved a hand to cover the sides of their faces, shielding them from view. The prince moaned down his throat as his body became invisibly active. Every hidden muscle that contained Rod vibrated on him. The voices became lewdly raucous. Questions were called out about the size of Rod’s parts.

“I’d like to tell them,” the prince murmured. “They may think nothing’s happening, but it’s the most heavenly ever. You’re doing it, darling. You’re making me hard again. I can’t stand it much longer. I want you to fuck me.” His body became more agitated until Rod was obliged to move slightly to his rhythm to hold himself in place. A cheer went up. An obscene chant began urging them on to greater efforts. “Do it, darling,” the prince pleaded, biting his lips. “Fuck me. Let them watch. I don’t care. I’ve got a hard-on now. Let them see it.”

Rod began to move freely in response to the urgings of the prince’s body, only just beginning to recover from shock and to grasp what was happening around him, beginning to feel a murderous loathing for everybody in the room. A hand ran over his buttocks, and he pulled himself to his knees with a roar of rage, bringing the prince up with him.

“You fucking shits,” he shouted. “Get the fuck out of here. Don’t anybody dare touch me.” There were fewer of them than he’d thought, eight or ten at the most, and his mind registered gratefully the fact that he knew none of them. The prince’s body was swaying against him, his arms lifted and his fingers running through Rod’s hair. His wet mouth moved over the side of Rod’s face, and he licked his ear and nose and cheek. With a jolt of horror, Rod realized that the prince was enjoying it, welcoming the opportunity to display his violated body. He slammed an arm against the back of the prince’s head and forced him down on all fours and drove hard into him. The prince cried out joyfully. Rod saw a naked youth emerge from the group and climb up over the end of the bed on his knees. The prince reached for him and supported himself on the newcomer’s hips and took his cock in his mouth. Rod seized his hair and yanked his head away.

“You bastard. You filthy bastard,” he raged. His body was shattered by orgasm, but he was scarcely aware of what had caused the sudden dissolution of his limbs. He knew only that he had somehow been freed from this horror. He wrenched himself brutally from the prince and flung him down and sprang from the bed. He charged through the onlookers, scattering them as he went, and found the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He washed blindly and dried himself on something and plunged back into the room, prepared to knock down anybody who got in his way.

The group had dwindled to five or six, all naked, all on the bed. Somebody had taken his place on the prince’s back. The prince had a cock in his mouth. Other bodies were tangled together in positions that he excluded from his range of vision. His stomach heaved with shame and revulsion. He turned his back on the repellent scene, cursing his stupidity and his loss of control. He had been so deceived by appearances that he had seen sweetness where there was only depravity. He was learning a lesson that he hoped would be seared on his memory, a lesson so ugly that it would be impossible to forget. Queers. They were all vile, degraded, and sex-obsessed. He hoped he never had to speak to another one.

He tried to pull clothes onto his shaking body. Somebody came up behind him and slipped an arm around his waist. He stepped back and swung his fist hard and saw a naked figure reel back and crash to the floor. It released the rage that was seething in him and calmed the violent trembling of his hands. He managed to pull socks over his feet and jam them into his shoes. He shoved his shirt down into his trousers without buttoning it and pulled on his jacket as he rushed for the door. He remembered he had a coat, but he had no intention of looking for it. He saw it on a bench in the entrance hall and snatched it up and hurtled through the front door and tumbled down dark stairs, following them blindly wherever they led him in a passion for escape.

He broke out into a dark narrow street and kept on stumbling forward, half running, rearing away from shadows, steadying himself against buildings. Dimly he became aware of having entered a more populous district and slowed down to a walk. Why was he running? His chest was heaving, and he felt very drunk. He didn’t remember being so drunk. His chest was cold. He looked down and saw that his shirt was unbuttoned to his waist. Without stopping he fumbled with the buttons and managed to get some of them fastened. He buttoned his jacket and coat over him. He began to wonder at there being so many people about in the wide well-lit tree-lined street. He’d had the impression that it was very late but guessed he was mistaken. People were walking; people were standing in groups. The presence of people and light made him feel healed, saved from some vague horror that would probably turn out to be a dream as soon as he sobered up. He lurched along the street and was engulfed by a milling crowd. He saw people carrying placards. Laughing faces were turned to him, and he laughed in response. An arm was linked through his, and he was propelled forward. A chant swelled up around him that stirred an unpleasant memory, except that this was friendly and vigorous, not at all unpleasant, something about North Africa that he didn’t understand. He was marching. It was fun. Young men and girls fell into ranks around him. It was a party, a celebration. He marched with a will, being forced to follow a reasonably straight course by the press around him and by the arms that supported him on both sides.

Progress slowed, and Rod was restrained when he tried to break through the line in front of him.

“
En avant,
” he cried enthusiastically, and the group surged forward briefly before coming to a halt again. He squinted over the heads in front of him and saw the reason for the delay. Helmeted men carrying clubs were advancing on them. The ranks began to waver and disintegrate. There were cries of warning. Somewhere deep in his consciousness he felt a small tremor of alarm, but it was too feeble to be seized by his brain and converted into action. The air of tumultuous festivity stifled alarm. People were pushing and elbowing all around him. He was borne to and fro, too busy trying to stay on his feet to think about anything else. One of the uniformed men seized him, and he was channeled into a group that was being detached from the rest.

“I’m an American. I’m an American,” he kept murmuring politely, making no effort to resist. It wasn’t until he was shoved into a dark crowded van that he began to feel that was something was very wrong. There was an excited clamor all around him. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. He couldn’t see his neighbors. They pressed on him from both sides. The van lurched into movement, and he was swayed and jostled and bumped between other bodies and the hard seat. Somebody had made a great mistake. He tried to think what to do about it. There was nobody to appeal to, to whom he could state his case. He became aware of a strong stale smell of unwashed clothing. He began to feel as if he had to fight for air. He couldn’t stand it much longer. He was suffocating. Get out. That was the thing to do. There was no reason for him to stay. It was a mistake. He tried to rise, but the swaying of the truck immediately jolted him back onto the bench. Somebody beside him muttered a curse. He lifted his head in an effort to reach purer air.

His mind wandered. His tenuous grasp of where he was slipped altogether, and he was simply borne along feeling slightly baffled as he was jostled and bounced to nowhere. When the van stopped at last, he struggled to relate himself to reality, as if he were in fact asleep and caught in some particularly dense dream. When the rear door was thrown open, he could see uniformed men silhouetted against the grim facade of one of Paris’ old stone buildings. His fellow passengers were on their feet now, shuffling toward the rear. They were silent, but Rod could feel something new in the air, a tension, a quiet menace. As the van emptied, he managed to pull himself to his feet, but he followed the others with reluctance. Whatever they were here for, it was no concern of his. He must find somebody to explain matters to. This was his only coherent thought as he descended from the van.

He steadied himself when he felt his feet firmly planted on the ground and looked around him. Dark-windowed walls surrounded them. A number of vans similar to the one from which he had just emerged were lined up at one side. One of them rumbled into action as he watched. Figures were moving about in the shadows. Everything blurred and separated before his eyes. He found it very confusing. A command was shouted, and he was aware of movement among his group. Nobody was paying any attention to him. He turned and, making out what appeared to be a gate through which the van was disappearing, he started toward it. He was immediately wedged between two burly men in uniform.

“Gently. Gently,” one of them said, not unkindly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“There’s no reason for me to be here. I don’t know any of those others. I’m an American. I don’t know what this is all about.” Rod heard himself say all this clearly and intelligibly in the policeman’s own tongue.

“He doesn’t speak French,” one of them explained discouragingly to the other. He went on in carefully spaced syllables, as if speaking to a half-wit, “
All-ez a-vec tes collégues. Compris?
”

His arms were seized from both sides, and he was propelled forward with chilling force. A prickling of dread ran down his spine. He wanted to make an indignant protest, but some deep layer of guilt held him back. There was something he had to hide. Something about money. It surely had nothing to do with his being here and yet an inexplicable guilt was growing in him. He could feel himself turning wary and sly.

“All right, all right,” he panted, barely able to remain on his feet under the rough handling of the policemen. “I’m not trying to make any trouble.”