Fleet of Stars - Part 2 (A Dark Shadows Story)

[lovesrain44]

Turkey was a hot, dry, place, with clean swept streets and skies as blue and as clear as the deep push of the ocean. They ported to a small city with an unpronounceable name and Jason had told him that there was something new they should try. Hashish, for one, sold on the streets to roll into cigarettes. Not legal of course, but common, enough so that the local version of the police tended to look the other way.

 

“You ever try hashish, Willie?” Jason asked as they stashed their gear in the cool, low ceilinged room. He had taken off his shirt to put on a clean one and Willie watched as he wiped the sweat from himself with the dirty shirt before putting on the new one.

 

“Hell, no,” said Willie, “but I’m game if you are.”

 

“You’re in for a treat,” said Jason, his eyes bright. “Grab the money and let’s go.”

 

They walked out into the street and toward the market, much like a Chinese market or an Argentine one, but with different smells, and colors, live animals tied up in crates, or dead ones hanging from their feet. Liquids in bottles tied with string and suspended from poles beneath tent awnings, and open grills roasting pickets of small fish. Willie wiped his hair from his eyes, grown long in the sea crossing with no barber available and him forgetting about it without a mirror handy. His dad would have been after him like crazy, but no one he’d met seemed to care.

 

“We gonna get something to eat, Jason?” he asked, thinking that it was late in the day and that it had been hours since he’d eaten. Trotting a bit to keep up. Jason had big strides, especially when he had something particular he wanted to do.

 

“After, Willie, after. We’ll buy the stuff and then smoke it and eat. Trust me, okay?”

 

Willie nodded, catching Jason’s eye with a flick. Jason had not let him down yet.

 

After the market came a series of streets that seemed too narrow for normal passage. But they were clean streets, newly swept and smelling faintly of dampness and soap.

 

“It’s a clean country,” he remarked, swiping his hang against the stone wall.

 

“Hush,” said Jason. “I think we’ve got our man.”

 

“How do you….” he began and then stopped. A man was approaching, his pockets full, and Willie assumed he was the man that Jason had wanted to meet. The hashish man. Jason was reaching into his pockets and the deal was over before Willie could blink. The man slunk away, and Jason turned to him, smiling.

 

“Here, put this in your pocket, that will make it easier for us to get through the market.”

 

“Why?” he asked, turning to follow.

 

“Because, Willie,” started Jason, with a tone that alerted Willie to the fact that what Jason was about to tell him was part truth and part lie. “You’ve got the face of an angel, no one would suspect you.”

 

They were crossing the first line of tents, when Willie felt a brush of someone behind him, and turned to see a man dressed all in black. Carrying a baton and sporting a badge that looked uncomfortably official.

 

“Jason, I thought you said—”

 

Jason stopped, greeted by his own man in black and the sights and smells of the marketplace seemed hushed for one, long minute as Jason turned around. Willie felt his muscles bunch beneath him. He was ready, of course. He could take one of them and Jason the other and then they could have a good laugh back at the hotel about it later.

 

But Jason raised his hand, his expression severe. “Don’t run, boy-o. Not in Turkey, never in Turkey.”

 

Then his expression changed, at that moment, as the guards grabbed them, and Willie realized that Jason had only just remembered which one of them was carrying the hashish. His eyes closed and he looked as if he wanted to kick himself.

 

“Tell them, Willie,” Jason muttered as they were pushed against a wall and searched by hard hands. “Tell them it’s mine.”

 

Willie felt his head thunk against the wall, felt the hands on him, his mouth dry as an old well. “They ain’t askin’ me anything.”

 

The hashish was found in short order, and Jason was shoved to one side, and Willie dragged out of the market by the two guards. For a moment, Jason was on them, pulling back, and one of the guards hit him with a baton and Willie only had a flashing glimpse of the blood pouring from the side of Jason’s head before he was shoved into the back of a dark van.

 

Of course it couldn’t last, of course Jason would be at his side very soon, quite soon. Before the grilled and wooden doors of what must be the local jail slammed behind him he was tossed into a room and stripped searched and slammed against the wall to have his picture taken. The bright flash of light was still blinking in his eyes when his clothes were thrown at him, and as he got dressed he heard a voice say, “Hashish is illegal in this country, you stupid Yankee. Or did you think you could pass for a native?”

 

He never really got a good look at the man, though. Or close enough to try a swing, though he had a funny feeling that trying to fight back would not be a good idea. Guards tossed him in a cell, clean, of course, this being Turkey, with four mats on the floor and a bucket in the corner and a spigot coming out of the wall. Clamping down on the shudder that urged him to start screaming for help, he moved to the edge of the cell. Pressed himself against the wall and shut his eyes.

 

Hashish is illegal in this country, you stupid Yankee.

 

Of course it was. Jason’s idea of a good time always bordered on the dangerous or the illegal, he’d noticed, though Jason’s good luck, or something, always managed to keep them out of trouble. Not this time. Not for Willie.

 

There was a row of bald light bulbs hanging from the ceiling outside of the bars of the cell, though none were actually located in the cell. This cast long, jagged shadows across the mats on the floor, and his feet, as he stood there, just to one side of them. He saw the shadows moving before he saw the people, and backed up quickly as the door opened and three other prisoners were thrown in. All Turkish, or thereabouts, they looked like to him. They didn’t seem duly concerned about where they were, either, taking off their shoes and settling on the mats. One of them bent down, cupped his hands under the spigot and got a drink of water, leaving a damp stain and thin puddle beneath it. Familiar with the place that they were in, and edgy at the same time. Whatever their crime, it wasn’t the first time for them.

 

They smelled strongly of sweat, and their dark eyes flicked over to him, once they’d noticed he was there, standing plastered against the wall as if glued to it. One of them motioned with his hand for Willie to sit down and Willie shook his head. Nope, he was fine where he was, thanks. Sitting down would lower him, lower his resistance. He’d never been in jail before, but a buddy had told him that fights often broke out, especially in crowded cells, and if you were sitting or were low to the ground, your chances of getting hurt went up. Not that this cell was crowded, though it seemed to Willie that the walls were shrinking a bit as one of the men, the one with a black moustache draped over his lip, stood up. He had managed to bring in some smokes, and lit a cigarette with a match and then tapped out the match with his finger.

 

He looked at Willie a long time, smoking the entire cigarette, and nobody moved. Then he said something that sounded like mediterraneo, which Willie didn’t understand but that didn’t sound Turkish, it sounded more like someone from Bensonhurst, the Italian neighborhood. Then, he nodded at the other men. They stood up, fast, like they’d been waiting for that nod, and went over to the bars of the door. Then they nodded back, and the man with the cigarette stubbed it out beneath his boot and walked over to where Willie was standing.

 

“Mediterraneo,” he said again, lifting his hand to touch Willie’s hair. Dropping his hand to the flesh beneath Willie’s eye, the tips of his fingers hot and a little rough and Willie jerked his head back so fast he heard something pop.

 

“No,” Willie said, his voice cracking.

 

The man only smiled, and pointed to himself. “Ruaf,” he said, rolling his r with smoky thickness. “Ruaf,” he said again, nodding.

 

Willie shook his head, his body starting to shake as if it were realizing the bad position he was in. His brain, however, was taking its sweet time catching up, and though he could smell his own sweat breaking out in cold lines beneath his armpits and along the back of his legs, he couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong.

 

“Do your worst, buddy,” he said, baring his teeth. “I’ll match ya.”

 

One of the other men snickered, and Willie lunged at him, only to be brought up short and hard against the wall. Ruaf’s arms pinned him there. Dark fingers gripped his muscles through his thin shirt.

 

“Ruaf e Mediterraneo,” Ruaf said now. It was almost a question. He seemed to be tilting his head back as if to appraise Willie’s response.

 

Willie tried wriggling back, to loosen the fingers on his arm. “Get off me,” he said, snarling, low. “Whatever it is, I don’t want any of it.”

Ruaf stepped in close, dipping his head to inhale, as if he was catching the smell of Willie, and then he lifted his head. Lips close, and Willie caught the sudden idea that the man was going to kiss him. He ducked down low, trying to push away, and Ruaf’s arms caught him easily, and tossed him to the closest mat.

“Ruaf e Mediterraneo,” said Ruaf, and now his voice sounded much more assured.

 

The light above them went out at the same time that a blast of bells sounded through the entire building, and Willie, even in this foreign land, could recognize the signal for lights out.

 

Lights out?

 

In this black and grey-dashed place it was already dark, he could feel it getting even darker before his eyes, as the men moved to one side, and Ruaf fell to his knees on the mat beside Willie, sending up the dust of old skin and dried urine and something that caught in his throat. He tried to move up from his hips, but Ruaf caught him. Pushed him down, pulled his arms to one side, and trapped them beneath his body. Willie kicked, his heart in his throat, but Ruaf’s legs were over his, and hands pulled easily at his pants and shirt, opening his pants, shoving them down and the shirt up, up, the bare, rough ticking of the mat scratching at his hot skin.

 

He was sweating so hard his body was slick, and he slipped his hands free and began to push away, kicking at the same time, when something clicked below his ear. Pressed against his pounding neck, and then he felt it, bright and cold, cut the skin. Not enough to hurt, but enough to warn.

 

Sliced and dead? the knife asked. Or not? Your choice.

 

Ruaf’s hand pressed him down, till he was turned resting on his hip, the knife flicking against his skin if Willie resisted, and they were so close that Willie could feel Ruaf’s heart pounding against his ribs. Thin ribs, as if he spent his days on the run, sliding through closing doors. Handling change in back streets, smoking on rooftops when the sun went down. Willie had seen the men in other hot places doing this; he knew the picture of Ruaf’s life.

 

A faint shuffle sounded in the corridor as the guards went by, and Ruaf didn’t even bother to put a hand over Willie’s mouth as Ruaf lifted himself up. It wouldn’t matter then, if he shouted for help, or screamed for Ruaf to stop. Then guards didn’t care, and certainly Ruaf’s pals had taken the side of their friend.

He started to shake, felt the back of his neck grow hot, and for the first time since he’d joined Jason, he wanted to be home. Back in Brooklyn, in the tenement apartment on Heights Street, his dad yelling about the heat and the lack of beer, and the fact that his son was a no good, lazy bum.

 

Anything, anything else. Anywhere but here.

 

Too late.

 

Hands, cool on his warm skin, pulled at his legs, pulling down his pants, the snapping elastic of his briefs catching on his hips and pubic hair. Hands tugged and stroked the line of his hip, and Willie could almost hear Ruaf salivating. He certainly swallowed, grunting in his throat. Willie turned, trying to push away, but his legs were now beneath Ruaf’s thighs, and the stroking turned a little harder. Not unpleasant, not to hurt, but his skin was cold and he couldn’t stop shaking.

 

Ruaf bent down, pressing against Willie’s hip, hands moving across him, across his front and his back, fingers trailing, slipping between his legs, the hardness of Ruaf’s crotch against his hip.

 

Then Ruaf breathed in, spreading his scent of uncertain spices, unwashed spans of flesh, and then breathed out. “Stay,” he said, shocking Willie with this show of English. “Stay, Mediterraneo.”

 

Willie pitched his head back as Ruaf leaned down, sounds in his throat, wanting to scream, teeth grit, and then the mouth on his shoulder. Biting down, not piercing the skin, but confident. Marking him. Moving hands as Ruaf knelt above him. Hands stronger now. Pushing cloth away, until his pants were down to his knees and the mat began to feel like a sheet of iced sandpaper beneath him.

 

Now the mouth was on his shoulderblade, teeth marking him, and moving up the back of his neck, sinking once, hard, right into the muscle there. Willie arched away, wanted to spit, but his mouth was dry, like he’d swallowed sand, with no water to sluice him clean.

 

“Stay,” came Ruaf’s voice, almost tender, in his ear. Rasping a bit, as if his mouth, too, were dry, and Willie began to realize that this unlikely word was possibly the only English that Ruaf had.

 

He said it again, like a hiss, under his breath, pushing Willie down on his face, one last hand sliding up Willie’s front, a light play on his cock, a hard palm to rouse him, and then away. Knowing it was no use, that his mediterraneo, whatever that was, did not care for this sort of game. It would have taken a lifting crane to get him up, and Ruaf was no fool to waste his time.

 

As Ruaf’s hands lifted, his body shifted down, and Willie scrabbled for reach at the edge of the mat. Wanting to pull forward, to push with his feet, to kick Ruaf’s weight off him. But Ruaf’s thighs clamped down and his chest pressed now, suddenly, against his back. The knife clicked under his ear again, and Ruaf said that word again.

 

“Stay.” Meaning it.

 

The knife cut him along the shoulder. Again, not deep, it felt more like a sting or a rash, but the warning was there. The knife could go deeper. Willie could be dead by morning. At the door to the cell, he could hear the men shifting, a voice saying something that did not sound Italian, and Ruaf, in that language replied.

 

One of them came forward and hunkered down on his heels just as Willie raised his eyes. Far as he could, only seeing the breadth of the man’s shins and the shining blade swinging in his fingertips. A smear of blood on it, too far out of reach to grab, close enough to smell the odor of the fishmarket, a funk of crotch and hair, and the bittersweetness of olive oil. Willie turned his head away, closing his eyes. Knowing the knife was there, and Ruaf’s hands were free, and there was nothing, nothing that anybody could do.

 

His eyes began to sting, like they were going to water, and he clenched them even tighter. Telling himself that if he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t feel it.

 

But he could feel it. Every shift of Ruaf’s body, flex of muscle pressing against him. Heard the rough sound as Ruaf spit, though no spittle landed on him. Heard the click of belt and the trained buzzing of a zipper undone, and moist hands stroked his back and the curve of his hip. Moving to cup his backside. Weight lifting off and then coming down, naked flesh against him, Ruaf’s chesthair crushing into his back, now, more spitting and then, fingertips.

 

Ruaf’s voice, humming, saying soft, as if to a woman, or a shy girl, “Stay, stay, stay.”

 

Fingertips pushing into him, separating his legs, and moving inside him. Slow, with care, damp nails with rough edges, and he could feel it all. One knuckle, then two, and it got rough. Pulling out, and then pushing in again. Two fingers, Ruaf hunkered down so far that the soft sack of his balls brushed against the back of Willie’s thighs. Another spit. Two fingers, hurting now, and he tried moving away from it, and Ruaf said something to the other man and Willie found his shoulders pinned down by hard hands. The knife still clasped so that Willie could feel the cold blade of it warming against the warmth of his arm. Legs and arms pinned, he could not move. Ruaf returned to his stroking and pressing, and the fingers entered him again. Ruaf paused to hitch one of Willie’s legs up, scraping the inside of his leg against the mat, cold air swirling between his legs now. And then Ruaf lifted off Willie altogether, and Willie felt hot knees settle along the inside of his thighs, taking their time. Ruaf humming, whispering to himself, “Stay…stay.”

 

Then the snub of something entirely hot, moist with Ruaf’s spit and, undoubtedly, the gush of its own intent, grazed the inside of his crotch. Stopped, Ruaf’s thighs quivering as hard as Willie’s, and then a push. The fingers pulling out with a slip, then the supple-edge firmness pushed again. Didn’t stop pushing, though it rested with a half-hitch, as Willie’s voice began to cry of its own accord, and he found that even as he cried, Ruaf pushed in, gently, as if he were a girl, a new, untried, shy thing, so new that to take her in any rough fashion would truly be a sin. As if he believed that what he was doing was perfectly alright with Willie, but that he must have a care because, it was, after all, Willie’s first time.

 

Ruaf’s cock was halfway in, taut and large, pushing him wide, feeling like he was splitting apart. Being ripped from within, hurting as if it were a sharp blade, slicing him, and the noises wouldn’t stop. He could hear himself making them, deep whimpers that began somewhere inside and found their own voice, his eyes, watering, tears burning their way down his face, he had to admit that they were tears, his heart scattering painful sparks down to his gut, and Ruaf stopped whispering “Stay, stay.” Instead he almost grunted, the word mediterraneo lifting out of his lungs and with one, hard push, shoved himself into Willie all the way up to his cock’s hilt.

 

That was when Willie finally screamed.

 

Ruaf clamped his hand over Willie’s mouth, now far forward so his lips were on Willie’s ear, his chin digging into Willie’s shoulder. Whispering something as Willie breathed hard, some combination of “stay, stay” and mediterraneo, but Willie couldn’t hear him. Not through his own panting, and the taste of Ruaf’s hands, grit and salt and the sour backwash of his own cock where Ruaf had stroked him.

 

Now Ruaf moved, his hand falling away from Willie’s mouth, though Willie could still feel it there. Tried to concentrate on that instead of the rough scrape sawing as Ruaf pushed in and pulled out. His rhythm, like the huppa huppa of a flat tire swaying back and forth, and the snapping sound of his damp flesh meeting with Willie’s and then pulling away. Growing moist, with the slickness of Ruaf’s excitement, or perhaps the smear from flesh worn too roughly, and Willie’s cries, meeting with that rhythm, his head knocking against the mat with each pull and push, his shoulders moving up as he tried to pull away from it, that soaring rocking that now began to move faster, faster into a hard trot, and then the shudder as Ruaf pushed in so hard and so fast that Willie felt the other man’s hipbones against his and, and saw, just in that second, a flash of white, as if something had exploded and he’d gone blind.

 

Then the darkness again and the roughness as Ruaf’s whole body now pressed him down into the mat. Still, but breathing hard, a hand stroking his hair, moving down his face, moistness sticking them together, as Ruaf rolled off him, his cock slipping out of Willie with a wet snick sound and the cool air of the cell sliding down from the ceiling to coat him, till he was shivering hard enough for his chest to hurt for breathing. The hard keening in his throat did not stop, even as Ruaf stood up, and put his clothes back on, the sounds of the zipper and belt echoing in backward slow motion, and Willie curled up on his side, though his back screamed at him, hands uselessly pulling at his trousers, his wrist feeling the thick dampness along the back of his thigh. The smell of salt and a slashy tang of pulsing semen as it leaked out of him, and the feeling that he could never, ever take another calm, slow breath.

 

There were sounds as if the men were moving away from him. To the other mats, their voices as they talked sounding only like beats of rain from far away. Not saying anything that Willie could understand, but speaking with an irregular rhythm that would never stop. Stretching out on their mats, still talking, the cold air crowding his hot flesh, cupping him in unexpected places. Like hands still upon him, pressing flat against his ears, or trammeling down his backside, searching between his legs like seaweed grown too thick in brackish water.

 

And everything hurt. Like he’d been beaten, only he hadn’t. The shallow cuts beneath his ear and along his shoulder had ceased to exist. He couldn’t feel them, not if he tried. His back and chest pulsed as if they’d been crushed between boxes, wrists raw from where they’d been held, ankles scraped somehow from the ragged cement floor. And from somewhere inside of him a low pulsing thing was growing, growling from far away and coming closer. He pulled up his pants with trembling hands, tried to pull his shirt down over his ribs, feeling the splashed dampness of Ruaf’s bites, hearing the men talking still as he wiped the sweat away from his neck with hands that shook so badly it was as if there were an electric current running through them.

 

Up on his knees now, to match button to button hole, zipper up, knowing that they were looking at him in the light from the hall way. Maybe laughing to each other, he didn’t know, or care, only that the sounds of their voices, like rain against a sill, did not come closer. Did not say, “stay, mediterraneo, stay,” nor husk against his ear as if they were lovers. His waistband pulled at his hips and he knew he would have to stand up. Would go to the spigot that felt as if it were miles away though he could see it gleaming only a hand’s breadth distance in the almost dark. He did it, pushing up with his hands, feeling a ripping sound and the angry tearing from inside, the growing thing, once so bland and so far away, galloping close enough to touch, and he got the very clear idea that in a few seconds he would be unable to move at all.

 

His feet became entangled in the mat and he had to half stumble off it, hearing the snorts of laughing behind him, closing his eyes as his hands circled around the spigot, not caring. Telling himself he did not care, turning the tap on as he fell to his knees on the hard cement, the back of his brain rocking with the dense, low pain that could not even begin to match the one that startled to life between his legs.

 

His hair fell low on his forehead, sticky with sweat, and he bent his mouth to the stream that now poured out of the spigot. Gulped down a swallow, pushed his hands beneath his chin to catch the water, rinsing, pushing the water over his face. Ducking his head, hot beneath the cool spray, the smell of metal rising up from the cement, not caring that the water tasted too sharp and tart, as if there were sulphur lurking in the pipes. Only that his mouth, once so dry, felt like the bottom of a river was sluicing over it. That his face, the back of his neck, now felt cool. And that his hands were so cold they hurt, almost drawing away from the never-ending thump of blood inside of him, pushing against some part of his insides that scraped and pulsed and then scraped again till no matter how hard he clenched his teeth, he felt the straggle ends of his breath squeaking high and hard up from his throat.

 

Hands met the back of his head, pulled him up. Another hand turned off the spigot and he was led, half-hitched against a thin pair of ribs, his legs weak, knees knocking against each other, to his mat. His mat, now. Marked with something dark, patches of it darker here and there, than others, and the hands pushed him down. He recognized the smell, uncertain spices, a faint tobacco. And the hands he knew. Pushing him with quiet gentleness, no laughing now bounced off the walls of the cell. Nor rain on the sill either, only the quiet broken breathing of his own lungs as he lay his head at one end of the mat and felt his legs stretched out for him. As if he could not move. Hair wet, pushed out of his eyes and away from his damp cheeks, fingers, sensing and smelling of himself, blood and darkness and cold, cold ash.

 

Eyes tight, he tucked his head into his shoulder, bringing up his knees as far as he could, to tuck his elbows against his chest, feeling the bleeding, like a hot ribbon, soaking out from him.

 

Ruaf moving away. The rain-patter voices talking again, low, as though they did not wish to disturb him, his head spinning white flakes against the darkness of his tightly closed eyes. And the screaming sound, too close now, that he could not even begin to ignore. Then it landed, hard, like razors, a thousand of them, pushing through him, lances and spears all thrown by hard hands, sure of their mark. Heart, lungs, his gut, and racing up from between his legs straight to his brain, a hot wire, a solid thickness, boring a pike right through him.

 

A white smear folded around him, clotting his lungs as he struggled for breath, barely feeling his hands moving up to pull his head down further into his chest. Tucked so hard down that his face became hot with the press of flesh of his upper arm, but he could only feel cold. Not the warm air nor the water drying on the back of his neck had any effect at all. Only the snow behind his eyes, as he grew colder still, and he, not in the clotted air of a prison cell, but in a deep, drifting bank of snow, somewhere far from the spot where he curled on a mat that dug into the bared skin of his ribs. Where ice slatted beneath him, and crystals of it formed around him, cutting off movement and sound, stopped the slow pulse of his heart, even, till the only thing he could feel or sense or know was the tick, tick, tick of the rain on the sill.

 

*

 

When he awoke, the cell was quiet around him, his body as stiff on the mat as a curl of dried meat. He lifted his head. He was alone, and a shift of the light in the corridor beyond the barred door told him that it was daytime. A bowl with bread in it sat inches from his face. His stomach surged at the thought of food, and he felt it turn over even as he struggled to sit up, kneeling only in time to vomit on the edge of his mat. Fumes rose up, sour like old milk, and his throat felt raw as though acid had poured through it.

 

He tried lifting his head, pushing up from the mat with his arms, his eyes catching the damp spot beneath the spigot just as the smell of damp sulphur swirled around him. His pants were rough boards against his thighs, and he looked down to see the long dark patches where blood had dried and stiffened the cloth. Bruises circled his wrists and forearms like bold, purple tattoos, streaking across to the bones on the back of his hands.

 

It occurred to him that though he was alone, he was still in jail. In a foreign country. How long would they keep him for possession of hashish? He did not know. Jason had never told him, and he felt the pulse along the back of his throat start to quicken. Would Ruaf be back, or would they throw someone else in the cell, and would he too have friends to back him up?

 

Going through it once was one thing, being someone’s slave to it was another.

 

He pushed himself all the way up, legs like bowed pins beneath him, and staggered to the door of the cell. Peered through the bars at the bare, silent corridor, not looking at his hands as he curled them around the grey bars, not wanting to see the smears of blood still on them.

 

His back began to throb, merely by standing there, and his thighs quivered, even with the mere effort of keeping him upright. Between his legs it felt as if someone had bored their way through him. A nasty sweat danced along the back of his neck, and he felt cold enough to wish he had a blanket. In the heat of the cell even, where the bars beneath his hands were almost warm to the touch and the air warm-swirled through the opening as if it had come straight from the dunes and hills of the nearest desert.

 

No use calling for someone, he did not speak Turkish, not a word, and he was sure his dance card made full mention of the fact that he was an idiot Yankee who liked to make like a local and buy illegal drugs.

 

Sighing, he let his hands fall away. And stood with his back against the wall.

 

The bread was still in the bowl, and looked fresh, but he could not bear the thought of eating. In an hour or so, perhaps, but not now. He needed to stop shaking, to stop hurting, to calm the nausea bubbling in his stomach, and to ease the rub of his pants against his legs. And wait for Jason to come get him.

 

Would he come? Would he know where Willie was?

 

His teeth began to chatter, and the wall felt like ice behind him. His stomach gave one loud burble and he barely had time to bend forward at the waist before he spewed up what he had eaten the day before. It arced to splat on the grey, cement floor, and Willie lifted up and turned away from it, wiping the back of his mouth with one blood-streaked hand. The cement wall grazed him as he pressed against it, and now he could not move away from it.

 

The day had started badly and late, and soon it would get dark and there would be more men in the cell come sundown, surely, and it would happen again, and he would spend the whole of the next day staggering around, throwing up in each corner of the cell and he didn’t think that the maidservice would be showing up anytime soon.

 

Stop it.

 

He heard himself saying it in his mind, though he wasn’t used to hearing it.

What?

 

Stop it. Stop acting like an idiot.

 

It was his own voice, but calmer. More sensible. He tipped his head to one side and waited for the echo of it to die away.

 

It did. And then he heard it again.

 

Wash up. Have some water. Lie down.

 

And then what?

 

Eat some bread later.

 

Oh.

 

It gave him something to do, in the vacuum of the cell and the corridor from which no sounds echoed.

 

He walked over to the spigot and stripped off his pants and briefs, his mouth and nose balking at the heavy tang of the combination of dried sweat and semen and whatever else there was embedded in his clothes. Hunkered down on his heels and turned on the spigot and began to rinse his underwear. Blood squeezed out in a ruby colored waterfall through his fingers as he pressed the cloth between his palms. His gut began to hurt, so he bent to his knees, gritting his teeth as he shifted his body in small short motions, feeling the twist of muscles that did not want to be moved, and tender flesh tearing anew.

 

Do this. Then rest.

 

Shut the fuck up!

 

It was impossible to ignore though, and he ran the underwear under the stream of water one more time and laid it out on the cement out of the reach of the puddle. The pants were harder, more cloth, more blood, clots splattering down to ooze in the water at his feet, and his hands grew raw under the tap and by the time he was finished and had laid out the pants, he was shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He made himself take some water in small, quick sips and turned off the tap.

 

Now his head was thumping as if he were actively banging it against the floor or the wall, and the shivering would not stop.

 

Do not throw up again. Don’t.

 

Okay.

 

He didn’t want to, he really didn’t want to, but it was too late, his stomach churned up the last vestiges of whatever he’d recently eaten in one watery brown splash and he had to rinse his mouth out again. Then he crawled to the nearest mat, not covered with vomit, and let his bones and body do what they had wanted to do forever and ever, to lay down and never get up.

 

I’ll just stay here. And if they want me, they can have me.

 

He closed his eyes and felt the light of the day slipping away, faster than horses could gallop.

 

And awoke hours later, in the dark, the light from the corridor streaming through the bars. An echo of his shout bounding back and forth off the cement walls, and he knew that his bravado of earlier was a lie. He was alone, though. Now. Maybe not forever. If anyone touched him, he knew he could not bear it.

 

He was shaking again, cold all over, as if he’d been carved from marble and had never felt the warmth of anything, the sun, a kind, undemanding touch, or even the flash of a match being lit. His lips were numb. He made himself push up, and reach for his clothes. Still damp, but drying.

 

In the morning. He would put them on in the morning.

If it ever came.

Fleet of Stars - Part 3