The Devil's son - 3. Death becomes him

“Although many substances can cause a reaction for the human immune system the strongest reaction is caused by foreign proteins” Samuel read to Arthur. “Because of this, immune responses to bacterial infections can be severe and even lethal”. Arthur and Samuel had been searching for the article Arthur had read about immune responses for five days when all of a sudden Arthur realized it hadn’t been in an article but in a book he used when he was in medical school. That night after their shift they went to Arthur’s place to see if they could find what they were looking for.

“Ok, so we know a protein can cause a severe immune reaction. We already knew that, of course, but we hardly ever think about stuff like that anymore” Samuel said.

When Arthur wasn’t answering Samuel looked at his friend and saw the handsome brown-haired man was zoned out again. This was starting to annoy Samuel. Ever since Arthur met that Jayden character in the hospital lobby Arthur got a stupid smile on his face and would be unreachable for several seconds. Even jamming his elbow into Arthur’s ribs didn’t work anymore. And stuff got worse two days ago when Samuel and Arthur got to the hospital for their shift. In front of the hospital was Jayden with two Starbucks mugs and muffins.

“What are you doing here?” Arthur asked.

“Well, we would still have a cup of coffee and because you haven’t taken any of my calls for the last few days ….” Jayden said.

Samuel sighed. The days before Jayden had showed up with the coffee he had tried to call Arthur at least 10 times a day. Arthur hadn’t responded to those calls because he was busy working and Samuel thought his friend had decided having a boyfriend right now wasn’t quite the best thing to do. Although Arthur thought no one knew he was gay almost everyone knew and no one really cared. Two of the rich interns made some jokes about it but that had ended quickly when Samuel threatened to report them to their supervising residents. After that, no one bothered Arthur and Samuel anymore, also because everyone noticed Arthur and Samuel were always happy to help and those two rich bastards only cared for themselves.

“Yeah, but if I’m not mistaken I owed you a cup of coffee and not the other way around” Arthur had said when Jayden gave him one of the mugs.

“Really? I didn’t remember” Jayden had said. “Well, you can buy next time than, ok?”.

“So you think there’s going to be a next time?” Arthur asked.

“A guy can hope, right?” Jayden answered. All of a sudden Jayden noticed Samuel.

“Hey, sorry I don’t have coffee for you too. I didn’t know you’d be here as well” Jayden said to Samuel.

“It’s ok. I don’t do coffee this early in the morning anyway” Samuel said, causing Arthur to look in his direction. If Arthur knew his friend, Samuel had at least downed 3 cups of coffee already at home.

“Arthur, are you coming? We’re going to be late” Samuel said.

“Yeah, you’re right. Bye, Jayden. Thanks for the coffee” Arthur said.

“Hang on. Could you take my calls from now on?” Jayden asked. Arthur turned around.

“Maybe it’s better to give you my home number. That way you can call me at home. When I’m not answering, leave a message at the answering machine” Arthur said, while he scribbled his phone number on a piece of paper. “I really have to go now, Jayden, but I loved seeing you again”.

It was a good thing Samuel was standing behind Arthur and Jayden because he was getting physically sick because of those two. Samuel didn’t understand. Ok, so he was Catholic, but he never had trouble with gay people before and he had known Arthur was gay for quite some time already. And it wasn’t like Arthur and Jayden were standing in front of him kissing and making out or something. No, the longer Samuel thought about it the more he was convinced it had something to do with Jayden. But what?

Samuel looked at his friend again, still zoned out. And then, all of a sudden, Arthur jumped up from the couch, walked towards his bookcase and pulled out a book on histology and pathology and started flipping the pages like crazy.

“Aha!” Arthur screamed when he had reached a certain page. “I knew I had seen a reaction like that before!” and with that he dropped the open book in front of a very startled Samuel. “Look here!” Arthur screamed. “I think I found something”.

Samuel looked at the picture in the book and saw an infiltration by leucocytes looking pretty much alike the photograph they had seen during the presentation. Underneath the photo was a note, saying: “photograph of the esophageal wall in a patient with severe food allergies”.

“Arthur, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I never heard of a food allergy doing something like this to a colon before” Samuel said.

“I know but food allergies are normally caused by proteins. And you can see the infiltration looks pretty much the same”.

“Ok, I agree on that. But what does this have to do with the colon inflammations? Again, I don’t think a protein can pass the acidic contents of the stomach and small bowels and still be intact enough to cause this” and Samuel pointed at the photograph.

“You’re right” Arthur said and he sat down and zoned out again, obviously in thought.

Samuel got up and walked over to the small kitchen in order to get himself something to drink. As soon as he opened the fridge he saw Arthur hadn’t been doing his groceries again. He sighed and got himself a glass of water. When he came back in the small living room Arthur was still sitting in exactly the same way as when Samuel had gotten op.

“Hey, Arthur! You have a message” Samuel said. “Actually, you have two”.

That woke Arthur up and he got up and walked over to the phone. He looked at the display of the answering machine and couldn’t believe he actually had a message. He never had a message and now he had two! Arthur pushed play.

“Hi, little brother. Don’t forget next week it’s 4 years since Ray died and mum and dad expect both of us home” Arthur heard the voice of his second brother, Leo. “It’s too bad Tom is still in jail but there’s not much we can do about that. So, don’t forget, little brother. We all miss you here. It will be good to see you again. Hugs from your big brother”.

As soon as Samuel had heard it was Arthur’s brother had had turned away and walked back into the kitchen. He still could here the message but at least it would give Arthur some privacy. Samuel knew how much Arthur missed his family.

“Hey, Arthur. This is Jayden.” With those words Samuel felt his face get hot with anger and his stomach upset with nausea. What was wrong with him? “If I calculated it correctly you just came out of a 48 hour shift and you have two days off now. So, I was wondering if you had any plans for the coming two days and if you wanted to go out on a date tomorrow? Let me know, ok? My number is ….”.

Samuel looked at Arthur while he was writing down Jayden’s number with that stupid smile on his face.

He did it! He finally did it! He called Arthur and asked him on a date. Over the last two days he had been thinking of doing it and he almost did it a couple of times but now he finally did it! Now all he had to do, was wait if Arthur would call him back.

Jayden didn’t understand what was happening with him. Normally he was never shy to go up to a guy and ask him out. But normally he was only interested to get the guy in the sack and fuck his brains out. Oh, he would love to fuck Arthur every way till Sunday but that wasn’t it. Whenever he thought about Arthur he felt all warm and fuzzy inside, not at all like he normally felt.

Jayden was walking around in his apartment, naked. He couldn’t stand the heat in his apartment but there was nothing he could do. The air conditioning broke down and since there was hardly any wind the open windows invited more warmth than cool air. Besides, Jayden was horny! He hadn’t had sex in 5 days, ever since he went to the ER with his sex partner du jour and met Arthur. Somehow Jayden found it difficult to go outside and try to pick a guy up. With his looks he would have no trouble finding someone to fuck but men got careful. It was well known by now gay men were affected by this disease, causing the closet gays to go deeper into hiding and the open and out gays to have less sex. Or at least, with less partners. And those who did want to have some quick and meaningless sex had trouble with people not wanting to use a condom. Well, Jayden wanted to use it, but it would do no good.

But, although it was convenient to give this as the reason, it was not the only reason Jayden hadn’t gone out in days to find sex. Three times in a month a guy Jayden had sex with developed symptoms of this new disease minutes after finishing sex and, although Jayden tried very hard to ignore it, he couldn’t shake the fact that it was quite the coincidence.

But the most important reason of all, the main reason why Jayden didn’t want to go outside to find a fuckfeast, was Arthur. Somehow the young doctor had stirred something awake in Jayden he had never felt before and he wanted to see where this would lead.

Jayden felt a familiar tingle in his crotch and felt his dick grow again.

“Oh, give me a break!” Jayden thought, looking down at his hard 29 cm big cock. “It’s 7 pm and this is the 11^therection I had since this morning!”. But Jayden knew there wasn’t much he could do about it. His first week in New Yorkhe had tried to ignore his hard dick and his raging hormones and that didn’t go too well. He had lost control and ended up having to replace almost half of his furniture. It gotten completely out of control that night.

“I have to make sure that doesn’t happen again” Jayden thought, remembering the fire shooting from his eyes, burning most of his stuff to the ground. Luckily he had been able to regain control and put out the fire before the building itself had caught fire. But ever since Jayden knew, instinctively, he should never again ignore his hormones.

Jayden moved his hand towards his dick and started jerking it while playing with his left nipple at the same time. He pictured Arthur in his mind, naked, offering himself to him. The image always excited him so much he came within minutes, shooting enough cum to make you believe this wasn’t his 11^thorgasm of the day. But it just wouldn’t do. Only half an hour later (he was wearing some loose shorts so he could sit in the window) he felt his dick grow hard again.

“Oh man! What do I need to do to get satisfied?” Jayden asked. But he already knew the answer. Although Jayden loved to masturbate it was no substitute for real sex. He needed to have some real, hot sex. 45 minutes later Jayden was on his way to Central Park, to see if he could find either a young man looking for anonymous sex or either a male prostitute. But he needed to get some satisfaction.

Central Park was dimly lit by some streetlights but there were still large areas where hardly any light could be seen. Jayden knew those were the areas he had to go to. Most of the men there would be either too old or too ugly to work with but sometimes a horny or drunk student would show up who would suck your dick or give up his anal virginity. Especially the so-called straight ones, who pretended to be drunk out of their minds, were a treat to Jayden. He loved to fuck them, especially when they found out he would not give up on what was once offered. He always gave a new fuck one opportunity to back off, to not have that giant dick of his up his ass. If they said they could take it, they would take it, no matter what. As soon as he entered that hot tight ass, he would not pull out before his orgasm. More than one university jock suffered from arrogance thought it would be easy and ended screaming for his mama. But those screams meant nothing to Jayden. First and foremost he needed to reach his orgasm.

Almost immediately Jayden saw a young man, about 19 years old. He was a freshman at NYU and sold his body to make it through college. The boy was quite attractive and in good shape. Jayden had had sex with him before and found out the young man was in fact gay. Although he could have earned his money in other types of jobs, he preferred to be fucked for money, or, as he said: “Who not combine business with pleasure?” Jayden approached the young man who was talking to someone else.

“Hey, Jim. Want to earn some money?” Jayden asked.

“Hey, Jayden, man! Long time no see. No, thanks. Normally I would but right now I’m not in the mood” the young NYU student said.

“Oh, what happened?” Jayden asked.

“Didn’t you hear? This mysterious disease made it’s first victim. A guy who was in the hospital for 5 days died about an hour ago”.

“We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin. The mysterious disease that took over the gay scene in New York just claimed it’s first victim.” Arthur and Samuel dropped their books and turned towards the TV.

“Tonight, at 19.25 hours 23 year old Travis McGuire died from the complications of an inflammatory disease of the colon. Inflammatory processes like the one that was fatal to Mr. McGuire are seen for almost four months now in the New York gay community, of which Mr. McGuire was an active member. At the moment the origin of this disease is unknown but, like in the late seventies of the 20^thcentury, gay men and women are treated as typhoid Mary in the early 1900’s. The Bellevue Hospital Center, where the victim passed away, is said to make a statement later tonight. In the meantime the President of the United States has asked everyone to stay calm and careful and not to take out their fear on innocent people. However, protests against gay people and gay rights have already started in the Greenwich Villageand gay men and women age 50 and above state they feel like the clock has turned back at least forty years. This is Tracy Wong, CNN”.

“Samuel, we have to get back to the hospital” Arthur said.

“Why? They’re going to make a statement later tonight. Don’t you want to see that?”

“Of course I do, but I’d rather be in the statement” Arthur said.

“Are you feeling alright?” Samuel asked.

“Samuel, we’ve overlooked something. Think with me, ok?” Arthur said, a little annoyed his friend didn’t see the connection he just noticed. “All these men are gay, right? I mean, Tracy Wong just confirmed that once more, live on CNN.”

“Yeah, We already knew they were gay. That’s why people are connecting this disease with the start of the AIDS epidemic, remember?”

“Work with me, Samuel. We also know the invasion pattern of the leucocytes is similar as the patterns seen in patients with severe food allergy in the esophagus. And we established that most severe immune responses are caused by proteins.” Arthur continued.

“Yes, and we also said it would be impossible for a protein to still be this active after passing the acid in the stomach and the digestive enzymes in the bowels. Where are you heading?” Samuel asked.

“These men are gay, like me. What if they are exactly like me? What if they are bottom, just like me?” Arthur said. And all of a sudden Arthur’s face turned ashen. He had just outed himself to Samuel.

Samuel heard Arthur had stopped talking and, when he saw the color in Arthur’s face, he knew exactly what was wrong.

“Arthur, did you really think I didn’t know you were gay? Come on! Almost everyone at Bellevue knows. And everyone is ok with it. Well, except for two rich pricks from the Upper East Side, but they now know they’d better not give you a hard time.” Samuel said. “But go on. You were saying?”.

Arthur was a little overwhelmed. He thought his sexuality was a big secret and that, should anyone find out, he would be in trouble. And now he found out they already knew and nothing had changed.

“Yes, well, what if they are 100% bottom, like me?” Arthur asked again.

“I know I’m going to regret this, but what is a bottom?” Samuel asked.

“A bottom is the receiving party when two gay men are fucking. He gets it up the ass. He’s the …”

“Ok, so, like I said, I regret asking already” Samuel interrupted. “I may not have a problem with you being gay, but I’m still a man and a Catholic man for that matter, so please hold back on the graphic details”.

“Ah, yes. Sorry”.

“Ok, so what if they are all bottoms?” Samuel asked.

“Well, that way they could have been exposed to a protein” Arthur said. “A protein that entered the body anally”.

“But isn’t latex allergy really rare?” Samuel asked.

“Yes, it is. And besides, latex is not a protein. But semen is.”

“Semen? But AIDS is still out there! Do you mean there are still men who don’t use condoms when fucking each other?” Samuel asked, rather shocked.

“I’m afraid so. Ever since treatments were found to control the HIV virus so AIDS was not such a big threat anymore, people started going bareback more and more.” Arthur answered.

“Bareback?”

“Sex without condom. A lot of men think it’s better to take a few pills each day than using a condom. They state there’s no more reason to take away any of the sensation of unloading in someone’s ass now that there are medicines to help them survive”.

“Again, too much information. Second, are they nuts?!”

“Maybe. It’s a fact that HIV infections, along with other STD’s, are increasing again steadily and no campaign so far worked to decrease the numbers again. And I don’t understand. Do you remember Mr. Waters? Who was in the nephrology department?”

“Yeah, I remember him. Wasn’t he the paramedic who got HIV because he grabbed a used needle?”

“Yeah, and now he has to suffer for it. He has to take 38 pills a day to keep AIDS at bay, but it cost him his kidneys and his liver. He’s probably going to die because of liver or kidney failure. If only the barebackers saw men like him!”

“Ok, so back to the problem we were working on.” Samuel said. “So, if we assume all those men are bottom and barebacker you think it could be semen that causes the inflammation?”

“Yes, I think so. I have no idea why the inflammation occurs but it’s a hypothesis worth exploring. We have to check the colon from one of the patients for spermatozoa”.

“And how do you want to do that?” Samuel asked. “Do you want to go to dr. Wall or dr. Engelberts?”

“Well, I want their permission to do the tests but if I can help it we won’t tell them yet what we think”.

“Might be a good idea. In a way we would be telling them the reason all of this happens is because of toxic sperm”.

Jayden was in a foul mood. He was more shaken about Travis’ death than he should be. They didn’t even know each other that well. Ok, so they had sex! Big deal! People had anonymous sex all the time. Hell, before the newsflash he didn’t even know Travis’ last name. It was hardly required to know to just fuck someone’s brain out. He was sure Travis hadn’t known his last name either. Hell, if it hadn’t been raining that night he would fucked Travis out here, in the park, and he’d never known his name at all. But he was glad it had been raining because otherwise he would not have met Arthur.

Arthur. Now that was something that didn’t improve his mood much. Why hadn’t the young doctor called him yet? Or would he and his colleagues be assembled like the last time? He longed for that young man so much it hurt! But not only in a sexual way. Somehow he also wanted to protect Arthur and be protected by him. It made no sense to Jayden at all and it frustrated him to no end!

And that, last but certainly not least, frustration! Jim hadn’t been the only guy who was too flabbergasted to be interested in having sex. In the end he had a older man who was at least 60 years old suck his dick but he was glad when his orgasm came so that he could leave. Apparently his physical needs were met, for now.

“Hey mister! Nice jacket you have on. Don’t you know the park is kinda dangerous for people who look wealthy?” Jayden heard a strange voice saying.

Jayden turned around and saw two men standing there, one of them holding a baseball bat and the other holding a pretty large knife.

“Yeah, you look really wealthy. And you even look like you can spare something. So why don’t you hand over all you valuables, like your phone, watch and wallet. Hell, I even want to have that nice jacket of yours” the same voice as before said.

“Gentlemen, you have no idea of the mistake you just made” Jayden said, with a voice that grew deeper with every syllable. Jayden skin became darker, like his hair and his eyes and his fingernails grew into razor sharp claws.

The next morning the police interviewed a homeless man who claimed he saw it all.

“I swear, he looked like the devil himself! His skin was dark as the night and his eyes were glowing. He slashed Big John with his claws and ended it with John’s own baseball bat. And then Domingo tried to stab him with that knife of his, but it just broke. And than that demon smiled and the next thing I knew black lightning bolts came from his fingers, frying Domingo like a marshmallow”.

The officers from the NYPD knew better than to believe Homeless Pete on his word. That man was addicted to alcohol and at least half a dozen of other substances. But right now they still had two dead bodies, one with a bashed skull and his intestines on the outside of his body and one that showed all the signs of a lightning strike. But, although it had been unholy warm yesterday there hadn’t been a thunderstorm above New York City. And what kind of person or animal would first gut a man and than smash his skull in with his own baseball bat? And how come they could see three set of footprints leading to this place (two of them already identified as the victims’) but no footprints left the scene? How did the killer leave the scene? Flying?