Mojo - 17. Chapter 16: Kohl’s Lament

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Chapter 16: Kohl’s Lament

I awoke beneath a curtain of sweat, groaning and painfully rolling onto my back. It seemed not even troubled naps were going to be allotted to me, because the midday laughter and sunlight of Venice Beach inveigled cunningly between the closed slats of the closed window. They could all go to hell, as far as I was concerned, and join me in my waking, dreamless sleep of the damned.

Rubbing sore eyes, I became conscious exactly how much I hated that soiled spot on the ceiling of this cheap motel room. I hated that I’ve had to look at it for three days now, ever since the afternoon my slime-bag ex walked Gordon out of my life.

Frustrated, I heaved over with a sigh and sat on the edge of the rumpled sheets. They hadn’t been changed since I got here, but the little bit of moving air licking the moisture on my back felt somewhat refreshing. I’d been forced to relocate – to this beachside dive – because, as someone once told me, the Gay Grapevine is even faster than Donny J. Dump’s Tweets – and mostly just as destructive. Word spread instantly to Neil Campbell that I was ‘available,’ which made me flee West Hollywood and his throtty clutches.

I stood and stretched, rotating and cracking my back in a few places. Then I fingered my not-so-tidy-whities; they have been the only thing I’ve worn since I locked myself in this cell.

A few minutes later, the toilet seat went up and I coaxed my useless Judas out into the air. Normally, peeing feels good in its way, but now it only made me think of the lengths I’d gone through to wake him up. On my exiled flight that afternoon, I scored a few street pills of the blue and yellow varieties – the kind old men look for from their hustler dates. I’d also picked up a pack of ‘sure fire’ herbal supplements at the corner market. After checking in, I had gone to the store briefly to stock up. I needed jarred pickles and energy drinks for my purges.

None of those treatments had worked, either alone or in combination, and the only rewards I got for my attempted ‘cure’ were a thready pulse, blinking white spots before my eyes, and blinding headaches. It all left me stewing in my anger and not wanting to leave this room. So, I’d just drunk my pickle juice and nursed the last of my Red Bull, hoping against hope…that…. I started to cry thinking about it. I simply hoped my boy would send me a text saying it was all some misunderstanding, that he didn’t really run out on me just because I can’t get it up.

I flushed and willed the tears to stop by beating my chest, as sick as it was. These teardrops had been no use, just like my three days of fasting and torment. No amount of prescription pharmaceuticals or caffeine; playing, coaxing or fantasy; or streaming porn on my phone had made a bit of difference. Except to drive me closer to utter despair.

Moving as if in a trance, I gradually found myself standing by the closets, in an area with a vanity, sink and mirror. I dared to turn on the light.

What I saw shocked me. Tired and thin, I kicked my hands out on the plastic ‘marble’ to lean in closer. When did I get those puffy crescents under my eyes; when had my fair hair become such a tangled mess; when did it get cowlicked sticking up on one side?

“Kacke!” I called out. “Land or sea – I don’t give a fuck which – punish me. Tell me why am I not drowned in a dirty sinkhole opening beneath my tired feet this very second? And you, great Oceans, you who do not even spare the innocent, whirlwind me down through a maelstrom free of conscience, knowing the soul you smother in wetness is not blameless. I’ll never be counted among the acquitted. But, enough—”

I whipped out the offending member and addressed it in the mirror. “And you, limp noodle, are you really of the vibrant earth? Part of the soil, alive with sprouting life, rich ground for all things verdant and self-generating? No, inert as clay, you have betrayed me too, and lost me my boy.

“But you should belong to the swelling tides as well, you who course with the strength, the same salinity as the world’s vast oceans; you who provide stars as abundant and life-bearing as the cosmos – but not if you are weak. Not if you simply hang between a man’s legs like a useless ornament.”

And yet this sad state had not always been my lot. Certainly not the night I fucked Assauer in the shadow of Hercules’ club, the fountain in Brunswick where we first let down our defenses. No, then it had been my prowess, my dick itself that had advanced me and Assauer from mere fuck buddies to partners in crime, boyfriends – and yes, lovers too – feeling and sharing in full communion.

Such a thought of deep connection caused my mind to drift back to a pivotal night in our relationship.

“You got what, where…?” I asked in disbelief.

“A liaison position at Ramstein.”

“The U.S. Air Base…?”

“Yes. And you’re coming with me.”

It had been six months since me and Assauer graduated from the Technical University of Braunschweig – just barely – and become underemployed and way-underpaid civil servants of a kind. We had two years to endure before we could take our final exam for full certification. Assauer was restless, but still, restless enough to move halfway across the country…?

“What will I do? Peel potatoes for those Yankee French fries?!”

“No, Dumbo. Look.”

He held out his phone, and on it was the website for the Ramstein-Miesenbach School System. They were recruiting part-time teacher apprentices to be on standby as substitute teachers.

I glared at him, pretending to be incensed, hoping I didn’t actually show how sad I was to be the one reduced to needing to take such a job. “What’s the difference? They’ll only give the minimum ten hours of work a week, plus eight more of lectures.”

“The same as here, right? Think about it. There we’ll have a chance to stand out more.”

He had a point. Since the university was in this town, apprentice teachers in Brunswick were cheaper by the kilo than even the famous braunschweiger.

“Come on, Kohl. Think of the adventures. Me, on base, sneaking you in, so we can have fun hunting down corn-fed Midwestern guys—”

“Sex?”

“Well, of course that, but I also meant fun as in doing a little harmless sob-story ripping off. And who knows, we might get a few good contacts in America this way too.”

I hated being poor.

“We can try it.”

Truth was, I felt I owed it to my boyfriend. In our second year of university, I got restless and forced a reluctant Assauer to open up our relationship. At first – and maybe for a solid year – we’d worked together to get freshmen out of their pants and into our bed together, but then one day, a sexy boy on the tram caught my eye and I went back to his flat to fuck him without my boyfriend.

Unfortunately, news got around, and Assauer sought revenge in a cruel and unusual way. Yes, he found a freshman girl to seduce and later told me all about the sordid details.

It made me crazy with jealousy – caused a huge scene – ending with Assauer saying, one, it was my fault because I never let him have my ass, and two, he was Bi and had no problems being faithful to me but if I was seeking dick elsewhere he was going to find and…. I can’t even repeat what he said, it was so gross.

And so our relationship became completely open. But we were upfront; I’d tell him which guy I was going after, and he’d name which bimbo-tart-chick he was using.

“Are you sure, Kohl?” Assauer asked me about moving to Ramstein.

“Yes. You’re special to me – plus, I owe you. You know that, and I think we make a pretty great team.”

Over the last two years, possibly because of me, my boyfriend had toughened and learned how to hide his cards well, but now his old smile returned as he hugged me. However, I couldn’t help wonder if he loved me more than I did him….

Months later, Assauer rolled into the flat one night with a drunk ‘troop,’ and we fucked the hell out of him. As the contented man lay in our arms sleeping that night, we talked.

“What’s the matter, Kohl?”

“I’m fine.”

“Something’s on your mind. The school’s okay?”

“Which one?” Not only was I on call for the district’s ‘sick list’ to go to any school, subject or grade as needed, but I’d been making ends meet by teaching nights at a cram school.

Assauer was not amused. “I don’t know. You tell me, Idiot.”

But…how could I tell him about Rolf…? How could I tell my boyfriend that I was developing feelings for one of my regular cram students? A teenage one at that….

I lay myself down in the tub, briefs still on, and turned on the water.

I didn’t know, maybe I intended to drown myself in this landlocked disgrace of a Venice Beach motel room; maybe I intended to mitigate my own stink; or maybe I just wanted to feel something other than hurt and powerless anger.

The cold crawled like insect legs of ice all around my skin as the tub filled. As bad as I was in Germany, I never betrayed my ex like he’d done to me in L.A., and my dalliance with guys was to be expected. On the other hand, his character was disgusting! Whoring himself out like that on the air base, taking all-cummers, being handmaiden to their back-of-barracks lust. He might have worn a skirt there for all I knew. As for ‘his other side,’ the dark one, Assauer’s tolerance of slit had a severely feminizing influence on his otherwise manly soul. Gott im Himmel! I pitied his weakness, because it put him in the compromised position of straight guys. They’re all eventually enfeebled and driven mad by a sad subservience to hoo-ha juice. The hets themselves can’t help it – poor bastards – they are born ‘that way’ somehow or other, and no amount of shaming and praying they were otherwise can help them overcome it, but for a strong Gay man like Assauer to be effeminized by dependence upon it, like he contracted an infectious itch for it through vaginal sex, made me quiver in revulsion and fury.

I slid my head below water and left it there. Through open eyes, I saw my ex on that horrible night we had to flee our homeland. For all his faults, he stuck with me when no one else would.

I rose from the water confused. Had my anger drawn forth more tears…?

But still, he stole my Gordon; how could I not hate my ex for that?

Shutting off the water, I lay back and realized I hadn’t taken off my shorts. Oh well, but if my boy saw this, he’d bust his sweet gut laughing at me.

Yes, sweet Gordon. How I remember that day too. The one where the boy literally led me on, even though I had sworn off jail-bait temptations….

“How was your day there? Mine was okay, I guess.”

“The kids are better behaved than I expected.”

“Well,” Assauer told me as we ate our dinner, still in our substitute shirts and ties, “Aptos is a pretty rich town.”

“It’s sure out of the way.”

My ex nodded as he spooned mashed potatoes.

We’d been traveling around the States for about ten months, picking up teaching certificates in various places and subbing. Mostly, we’d kept ourselves low and out of trouble.

“There seems to be a lot of healthy, young athletes at this new school—” I was already thinking of one in particular….

“Must be the sea air,” he joked, but maybe there was something to that. We’d been here a week or two, and slowly acclimating to the cycle of warm, sunshiny days being followed by foggy, bracing evenings and nights. It put a spring in the step and a smile on the face—

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. Just how the kids have lockers outside, that’s all.”

He let the subject drop, and I vowed to forget all about the sexy young man I’d been seeing every day at his locker as I passed along. Usually the boy would be laughing with buddies – or sometimes standing, grinning and bearing the fawning awkwardness of a pair of infatuated girls – but no matter the situation, the tall kid with the longish curly hair and a devil-may-care cant to his full rosy lips, had a smile for me, had a lingering turn of his head as he traced my progress with his eyes.

But today had been different, or more accurately, my so-called moral resolve, weaker. For, obviously knowing ‘the game’ better than that young man, I continued on past his position – three steps: one, two, three – and glanced over my shoulder, back at the lad.

He nodded to me, licking his lower lip and letting a knowing smile shine.

‘Oh, fuck,’ I thought. ‘Not again.’

“Kohl?”

“Yeah, Assauer. I’m okay, really. I think I’m going to like Aptos.”

“Okay,” he said skeptically. “Just stick to the plan and don’t enjoy it too much.”

I ate my minestrone in silence, letting the sweetness of the boy’s thought course through me.

I tried, I really had. After that day with the glancing eye-contact, whenever I saw this kid, I headed the other direction. I avoided asking who he was, who his people were, what his interests were. As I say, I tried.

But one day after several months of the schoolyear had gone by, I was alone in my classroom tidying up at the end of the day. The bell had already rung, and the final thing I needed to do was roll the overhead projector back to the storage room. When I turned around, there he was.

“Mr. Kohl?”

“Um – yes.” I couldn’t help smiling.

“Gordon Sanchez. I’m a junior here.” He shifted the strap of his heavy gym bag and held out his hand.

“Um—” I shook it, growing hot at his touch.

“Need help with that?”

Before I could say anything more, the sexy boy was wheeling the cart out of the room. I switched off the lights and followed.

“This one?” he asked, stopping in front of the correct storage room with a wickedly delicious look on his face.

“Yes. You know your way around, huh?”

That was the first time I saw him blush.

He stood aside as I unlocked the door and stepped in. Gordon Sanchez followed, pushing the projector in and closing the door behind him.

A moment later, his bag landed on the floor with a mighty thud, and he was guiding me with his tongue in my mouth to stand against the wall.

Eyes closed, his roving hands on my clothes felt like fire; I was instantly hard, as he was without a doubt an experienced and expert kisser.

He released me and slid down to his knees, undoing my slacks and taking them floorward as he went.

Just before he took me into his mouth, I fingered the front of his silken hair and made him look up at me.

“You sure?” I asked.

He held my eyes and went down on me, moaning his consent loudly enough that I felt it along every inch of my spine.

Even as I gripped onto his head and began to enjoy it, I knew part of the thrill was the sheer danger of it all.

I wound up back before the vanity, leaning on it, a towel around my waist. Perfect droplets of moisture dotted my skin, except on my cheek. There they had a different shape and flavor….

My sweet Gordon, I thought you loved me. But maybe you only loved my cock. Could that be? Could Assauer’s freakishly enlarged donkey dick be the thing that led you astray?

I spoke to him, as if I could see him over my shoulder in the mirror. “Everybody looks at us and assumes the worst of me – figure me to be a cradle-robber – but they don’t know, can’t see through your beautiful looks how sultry your boy-heart really is.”

I pounded my fist on the sink.

“Oh, God!” I cried. “Like a cheap camp follower, my beloved boy sold out my love for a romp in the back of the barracks.”

I sunk to my knees, these lyrics forming on my lips:

“On my craggy outcrop, alone,

the roar of vengeance is as loud

as the whole sea upon a stone –

laying me on her flinty shroud.

 

Do I deserve such a cruel fate;

is my ‘sin’ any worse than his,

the one who escapes without harm;

the lying one who steals from me;

the scoundrel without compassion;

the lover with no love in his heart;

the ex with only malice in his?

 

No, too cruel is the punishment

to live with what I don’t deserve,

to be forced to suffer endless

rebukes from within my own heart

while they go on free to enjoy

the illicit bliss of their crime.

So earth below, open and swallow;

so sky above, part clouds and smite me.

 

On this heartless cliff-face copestone,

my voice cries for mercy aloud,

but Death will not let me atone –

for cruelty is much too proud.”

That’s it. A concept had come into my head, making me stagger to the desk drawer. In another minute, I had Hojax’s pistol loaded and in my hand.

I ripped up the blinds and stood blinking and paralyzed by the sun.

Regarding the handgun slowly lifting to my temple, I wondered what possible use is a Gay man who can’t get it up.

I cocked the piece, murmuring, “Take me, O ye gods. End my misery….”

But slowly, the motion of people outside – walking, riding bicycles, cruising on skateboards over the roadway fronting the beach – made me angry. They were having too much fun. Too much goddamned ‘life’ ran through their veins.

I demanded to know, “Why should I be the one to do it?!”

I un-cocked the gun, digging in my bag for some clean clothes. And while I got dressed, the afternoon noise and animation just outside my window caused me to grow angrier and angrier.

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