Makarovia? Where The Hell Is That? Freshman Year - 23. Chapter 23

I still had the new website to deal with and this was going to be an ongoing project. The three photographers were showing me numerous photos. Daryl was the nature guy and he had some beautiful pictures of everything from wildlife like deer and some butterflies. Kenny had pictures of the mountainous landscapes he took showed some majesty and beauty. There were forests here in Makarovia which showed up beautifully with green foliage and even a squirrel eating whatever. But Becky’s pictures…I marveled at the photos that showed a happy, working and diverse people. Becky was good at both candid shots and posed shots, showing many families…and couples that were both male and both female, but also the many other families that were families containing a mother, father, and children.

What was interesting was the numbers…and I’m sorry again, but East Europeans had particular manners and behaviors that are different than other places in the world…well like the way they classify everything in the West in one lump from England, Germany and others…North America made up of both Canada and the United States…for instance, in going down a row of seated people at a theater, a Colosseum, at a play or concert…never ever would an Eastern European man even consider leaning forward to lessen the room needed to get through by turning his butt to you even if the seats in front of him were empty, that would be a huge social blunder! I bring that up, because of our numbers were because behaviors are a lot times…are learned. There were only a few that would I have considered effeminate by action or speech. Most of the homosexuals here didn’t gush, call each other girlfriend or anything like that. Again! I don’t think any of them thought about it…don’t hate me if you are, they just weren’t…fabulous. We emulate what we see and it becomes part of ourselves, but…most of the ones effeminate were not Eastern European, but were from the West! Not that I’m saying you should or shouldn’t be, but most of that was learned! Most of the guys were just…guys. I’d taken some of those various tests before…to see how gay I was. Other than my musical tastes…as in loving Broadway shows…not liking competitive sports…I was surprised when I discovered just how gay I was. However, my aversion to all things shopping when it came to what I wore brought those numbers to the straight side. I admit to liking that part. Wrong? Yes, but here I am. I was struggling at that time, so give me a break. Peter scored low on the gay scale, too, which is why I probably was attracted to him. The gay men in Makarovia scored very low on the gay side. Peter was right; there were some crossdressers, but again…not many. There were some that I was surprised were really female. I’d heard of bull-dykes, but...again, not many. One couple surprised me when I met them because I was guilty of stereotyping myself. There was a couple…married, who I swore the pretty woman had a nice-looking husband! I mean she was her husband! Her husband was a she! I mean, he was…it was a man whether or not this man had a dick or not! Only to find out she was one of those…butch lesbians. I was surprised! How did I miss that!? I told myself, I wasn’t involved with the marriage, why should it matter!? I’m guilty!

The total population was pretty much fifty-five to forty-five percent. Fifty- five percent were regular heterosexual people. Forty-five percent were gay. Almost half of the population was homosexual! Now, of that forty-five percent…take them as a whole…and sorry again ladies…only about thirty percent of that total number of homosexuals that was lesbian. It was the men who were arrested the most. No, there were women arrested, and they did suffer, but their punishment was not always as severe! Women were fixable. They are non-sexual beings. Lesbians they tried to cure by making them have sex with the gay men. They were forced to serve the SS and administrators in camp brothels. The life expectancy in a brothel was six months. No happy ending for anyone. There were rapes of women, but one hundred thousand men were interned in these camps. Many men were raped! Sexual discrimination even by oppressors was reflected in that number. It seemed if a man was caught with another man…if he was giving the other man his cock up the other’s ass, he suffered less, though I’m not sure how that was measured or could be measured. The man who enjoyed taking it up the ass got it worse! It seemed where you put your cock was less important if you didn’t bottom.

How I found out was when I was looking for some history about these people and how Makarovia became what it was. A sanctuary. I asked Olek who sent me to the archives. That was another room I didn’t know about. He told me where I needed to go. Arriving there, I saw shelves of books and papers around. Stacked neatly and labeled as what they are. As I was looking, Gretchen, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties passed by this unoccupied room, glanced in when she saw someone in it.

“Can I help you find something, Your Lordship?”

I stiffened at the use of the titles. “Yes, you can. First, I know there are protocols and procedures…I appreciate that, but is it possible to call me Eric?”

Gretchen laughed knowing what I preferred. “It is possible.”

“I’m looking into the history of Makarovia.” I said. “Specifically, about those you hid here.”

Gretchen nodded. “Certainly.” She motioned for me to follow and led me to another room where there were the numerous wooden filing cabinets all labeled. “There was a project that began about 1994 or 95 where a historian came to do a book.” She shook her head. “Actually, it started in the 1950s, but…unfortunately, the historian passed away before he got too far.” She gave a sad sigh and shrug. “Until communism fell apart in Russia, we kept things secure in the mines to keep eyes from just happening on them. It is one thing to know they are here, but another to have documentation about them with names and histories. That part of the project began in the mid-1950s to assist with the healing, but we didn’t want the Soviets to get to these records.” She looked at me hoping I’d understand. “In 1994 is when Henry Brown came and asked about us. The writer was also American.”

“Really?”

“If he was allowed to look at the files and stay here at the palace…he was going to put them on computer disks.” She waved to a desk and walked over to some drawers which she opened. She picked up a plastic container with these diskettes. “Here is what he got through. Then there was King Olek the First’s death and the discovery of the uranium and…” she smiled giving me the file disks. “…but it’s here. There are more letters in those drawers over here.” She opened a drawer again and pulled out some large, wrapped envelopes. “In here are the original handwritten letters, translated in Makarovian. When Henry died unexpectedly and the changes here politically…this sort of went to the side and was forgotten. It’s all here.”

“Thank you, Gretchen.”

“Certainly, My L-“

“Gretchen.” I groused lightly looking at her. “Do we have a computer that will read a diskette like these?”

“That I can’t help you with,” Gretchen said. “But there are still some original letters in there.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” I tapped the box of diskettes against my chin. “I wonder if David knows where I can get these read? All the disks now are CDs or those memory sticks.”

There was a desk with a chair which I sat and opened an envelope, I saw the original letter which was in German and the Makarovian translation and opened it. What I read…after the first couple of sentences, I began to sit up more. It was translation was written in Makarovian, but…this was a firsthand account of some things and all of them were real. This one was a man who identified himself as Fritz. Stealing a German Youth uniform, he was under twenty and he went to rescue his lover who was being sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. He lover was Jewish! His lover refused to leave without his parents and family, his lover was killed with his family, but Fritz survived and fled a long way and just happening on Makarovia. I turned to the next letter and was caught again in the words. I read accounts of fingernails torn off. Bowels ruptured when a victim was raped by a gun! A rifle! Yet, I kept reading. As ghastly as the writings were about…I couldn’t stop reading them! I was sick like I might throw up on more than a few of them. In a camp, one recalled for the need for a public execution…who they chose he was not a man, he was a boy! He was only eighteen years old!!! The man that wrote this letter knew him and could do nothing but watch as guards stripped the boy, put a bucket over his head and repeatedly banged on it, released trained German Shepherd dogs where he was forced to watch this boy mauled and literally torn apart! On that, I did sort of throw up, not a lot, but I tasted it.

I knew why the pages were beginning to get blurry, but I read more. Account after account of rapes by the Nazi troopers sodomizing men with…yes, their own dicks, but also with objects like the gun or clubs or even a big fork where the prongs tore apart his insides…and even splintery wooden post!! These poor men were less than those held as criminals, asocial or Roma…the gypsies!

Then one I read where one of two lovers was raped, again and again, breaking through the bowels and he would have bled to death! It was only because of a sudden fire they had to stop and his lover took the chance and got them both away and the weather was nicer at that time and his lover kept him alive and cared for him until they got to Makarovia moving at night. I cried reading this account of this man…what they did to him…his lover and he escaped and came to Makarovia where they were hidden and then after the war welcomed to remain and even married. Yes. Legally married in Makarovia in 1948! Before it was legal in any country! They lived another thirty years together, but their account broke my heart as I just…wept. This wasn’t just a sad movie or song, this really happened. I mean, I didn’t even try to stop. These men earned my tears, they deserved those tears and I gave them freely. This one time, there was no one-upping anybody on anything on who suffered most! All of them suffered! They didn’t have to. Peter and I would be in trouble as we liked to do both! None of its fair, I know. Horrible. How dare we love someone that shares our gender! How dare we challenge what determined what a man is because we liked to bottom, as well as top!? Men are to fuck, men didn’t get fucked! I was pissed off!!! Outraged! I was furious!!! Peter and I loved each other!! No one deserved any of this!! Who cares if we’re the same gender!?

When I was sniffing wiping my face from the tears and just lowered my head to the desk…that was when Peter came in where I had been reading.

“Olek said...” Peter said to he was told to find me…saw me in a different room and saw the tears and was at my side instantly pulling me in up in an embrace. “My God, what’s wrong?”

I was up hugging him tightly but waved the document I had in my hand. “This!” I said in tears. “This is horrible! Just horrible!!”

Peter looked and took the document and read quickly. “Oh, my god.” He read and now he had to sit down as I had. He read more. “This is…horrible.”

I waved at the letters, yellowed with age, but still there. “There are more! A lot more. All Makarovians that escaped during World War II!!”

Peter gathered some and read quickly. “How can anyone…” he shook his head as he read. “Those people who did this weren’t human!”

I shook my head. “This…” I said wiping my face again, “has to be on the website. These people…are what made Makarovia what it is!” I said. I looked at the other documents. “They kept these and recorded these accounts…why?”

“To let people know.”

“And that’s just what we’ll do.” I nodded. “That’s just what we’ll do. All of these letters…testimonials and other events will be entered and they will, at last, have a voice!” I looked as Peter read briefly another. “Right now, Olek better keep those…Germans…away from me. I’m liable to take their throats.”

“This was almost a century ago…they didn’t do it.” Peter said weakly.

I nodded. “A distinction I can’t do right now.” I looked at Peter, smiling as I wiped a tear from his face. “So, tell me.” I waved at the letters. “These men are dead now. At one time, I think the population was more than half homosexual. Where are all these other men coming from?”

Peter smiled. “Well, the Nazis weren’t the only ones that made gay men suffer. There was Russia…and still is. The various countries that made up the USSR also suffered, most of the ones here now came from them.”

I sighed. “Olek should worry about all those other countries sending them now.” Then I frowned. “Are there people that identify as Islamic here?”

Peter shook his head. “Not really. Sure, they are persecuted, but they just don’t know about us yet.”

“Well, they will soon,” I said sadly gathering the letters. “These need to be kept safe…protected.” I frowned at a tear I’d let fall on one. “This can’t happen again, just touching and reading like this. We need to scan them.” I tapped the letters. “No, this horror…can not happen again. I mean, this whole Holocaust will never happen again to anyone.”

We walked back to where Olek had an office. He looked up smiling, but then looked at our faces, swollen red eyes and he rose, concern in his eyes.

“What?”

I shook my head and waved at the box of letters. “This is what’s wrong. In here are testimonies of eyewitnesses from the many Makarovians that came during World War II.” I took out a couple of letters and gave them to Olek. “After this, they need to be sealed, but…” I waved at the letters. Before even five minutes had passed, Olek was doing what we had done. Wiping his face of the tears he shook his head. “I knew it was bad.” He said clearing his throat. “I just never knew how bad it was.”

I nodded. “These were our people,” I said softly. “I don’t mean homosexual, but they became Makarovians. Don’t you think these need to be put on our website?”

Olek nodded. “Absolutely.” He stood. “No one will wonder how we came about. If anything, other countries will read these and wonder why the hell wasn’t their countries doing the same as Makarovia did!”

I held up the plastic container of diskettes. “Do you know where anyone has a computer that reads these?”

Olek smiled as he took the diskettes. “We don’t throw anything away in Makarovia. I know we have one or two around.” He came around his desk and wrapped his arms around both of us. “You know…you two are the most important people to me.” He said kissing Peter on his face near his temple, then me. “I love you.” He smiled. “Never will I allow anyone to do that to others, especially, not you two.”

Peter and I smiled back and said. “We know.”