The Artists - 11. Ben, Six, and Tiffani

Ben winced from the sharp pain emanating from his rectum as Jason pounded into him. There was no surprise in the act, as he knew it was coming as soon as he walked in the door from an uneventful meal at the cafeteria. The forearm to his jaw had knocked him back into the door and down onto the floor in a series of shuddering thuds as his body didn’t bounce off the hard surfaces. He sat stunned by the physical and mental shock and, while trying to come to his senses, felt himself being pulled up to an almost standing position before a fist slammed into his groin. Pain swept all conscious thought out of his mind as he gave into the beating. Only it didn’t come. Jason, who Ben hadn’t noticed, was already naked and Ben was quickly disrobed, too. He was thrown, stomach first, onto his bed and felt Jason straddle him. He tried to relax and prepare for the entry, but it was excruciating in its unrelenting force. Then the light went out.

He was glad he took Jason’s offhand remark, “You might want to eat light,” as he left earlier. He remembered thinking how strange it was for Jason to care, but now as he lay under the bulky tight end, he began reviewing the events over the past twenty-four hours.

There was the initial assault; two punches to the gut and one to his left cheek followed by him sucking Jason’s cock. “You’d better swallow, too, or I’ll really beat the crap out of you,” Jason had said as Ben worked on the cock and tried to imagine where all of this was going.

With Jim, it was quite simple; having sex with the old man meant staying at Charles House. All he had to do was make doubly or quite possibly triply certain to cover his tracks when items went missing. He had to ensure the alibi network, such as it was, was ready to step in and offer a cover. In the end, though, nothing worked and he ended up with a cock in his ass. At least Jim didn’t hit people.

Afterward, he lay back on the bed trying to swallow the taste of Jason out of his mouth. What was it Jim told him the first time? “It’s an acquired taste, like scotch or lutefisk.” He never imagined Jim eating the disgusting cod dish, but having been raised in the Scandinavian wilds of Minnesota, he saw it on the Thanksgiving dinner table every year. It definitely was an acquired taste.

Then something strange happened, Jason sat down next to him and began to undue his pants.

“What are you doing?” Ben remembered asking as he lifted his hips so Jason could pull his pants <i>and</i> boxers down to Ben’s ankles. He didn’t want to make too much of a deal about this lest Jason hit him, again.

“I’ll jack you off,” Jason said, taking hold of Ben’s longer, semi-hard dick. “You’d better not say anything to anyone about this or I will kill you; and, unlike you, I’m not gay so don’t even start thinking I’m going to do anything else.”

Ben let it happen. What else could he do? Jason was so much bigger and seemed so intent on getting Ben off. Plus, Jason seemed to enjoy what he was doing. Ben was beginning to think of the small, dark room where Jason hid his sexual desires.

Afterward, as they were getting ready for bed, Jason said, matter-of-factly, “Sleep nude, I might want to fuck you sometime in the night.”

“Okay,” Ben mumbled, wondering why it had to happen in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s how Jason learned about fucking guys. Had he been fucked late in the night after everyone else in the house was fast asleep?

There was no fuck in the night, but when Ben awoke the next morning Jason was sitting on his bed, naked.

“I’ve pissed, but the boner won’t go away,” Jason said in his usual soft, yet threatening voice.

Without so much as a “good morning,” Ben sat up and took care of Jason. Once he expended himself into Ben, Jason stood up, turned, and slapped Ben’s face so hard Ben was knocked down onto the bed.

“Just remember one thing, you’re the fag in this room,” Jason said into Ben’s disbelieving eyes.

For the rest of the day, Ben stayed out of the room looking up friends from the previous year, most of whom already heard about most of what happened at Charles House and why he wasn’t living there anymore. From a fairly healthy stable of friends and close acquaintances, he was down to Brent, a junior who still lived at Charles house and wouldn’t be in until Sunday morning; Tiffani’s semi boyfriend Karl, who he actually didn’t like all that much because he didn’t like Tiffani; and, strange as it seemed, Casey, who had a weird sense of right and wrong that enabled him to feel some form of injustice was at work in Ben’s life at North Park.

It was from Casey that Ben found out Jim had gone to New York to look up former friends and possibly publish some sort of compilation of his novels. He truly felt sorry it had come to Jim having to run away, too. Somewhere in his twisted heart, Ben figured there was a place for the old man. After all, Jim had attempted to express his love and allowed Ben to be the top, but it wasn’t the same as the other way around.

Even though he was nearly positive he wasn’t close be being anything like a queer, Ben did know it felt different with his dick in Jim. It was almost as if the act was unnatural, to where he was almost nauseous remembering Jim under him moaning from pleasure, the same moaning Ben suppressed when Jim fucked him.

So, now, here he was under Jason suppressing the same sounds; groaning instead from the steady, yet somewhat inconsistent rhythm of the fuck. He had to admit it; he did enjoy having a man’s dick in his ass, which didn’t make a bit of sense because as a rule guys didn’t turn him on.

Casey was cute, but more in a boyish sense and there was that rumor that he liked being fucked, which was quite contrary to Ben’s sense of propriety. If he was a bottom, why did he attempt to fuck the kid? He wouldn’t have enjoyed the act. The continual sight of those two perky mounds of white flesh might have actually repulsed him.

Jason changed position and began anew.

Ben sighed at the thought they’d been doing this for nearly fifteen minutes and it seemed Jason was nowhere close to coming.

“Jason?”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Jason said.

“Pull out and let me turn over on my back,” Ben said, thinking of the way Jim fucked him.

“Why would I want to do that?” Jason asked. He continued with his intermittent deep then shallow thrusting that wasn’t doing Ben any good.

“Because you’ll feel better doing it that way,” Ben said hoping the lie would hold up. “Trust me on this, I know, I’ve been fucked before and the way you’re doing it just isn’t right.”

“Well, okay,” Jason said.

Ben waited for Jason to get off the bed and then rolled onto his back. He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp.

“Turn off that light!” Jason exclaimed. “You’re not supposed to fuck with the light on.”

“Who told you that?” Ben asked.

Jason stood beside the bed looking as if he’d been caught with his dick in his best friend’s ass. To Ben, it almost looked as if Jason might start to cry. Obviously, Ben hit on something very hidden in Jason’s closet.

“Because if you don’t I’ll pound you,” Jason said, clenching his fists.

“Think again tight end,” Ben said as he sat up. “There’ll be no surprise to your attack, this time. I’m ready for you and just to make things interesting you just might want to notice that your condom broke. It’s quite possible you’ve left a few bits of DNA in my ass. I’d hate to think what might happen if I yelled rape.”

“Fuck!” Jason exclaimed. He sat down next to Ben totally defeated.

“Who taught you about fucking guys at night in the dark?” Ben asked. He didn’t know why he was being compassionate other than wishing to keep the peace in the room. They were going to have to live together. If there was going to be sex, well they’d have to work that out, but it was more than obvious a lot of what Jason was doing had a lot to do with what happened before he graduated from high school three years earlier.

“My brother, but you can’t say nothing,” Jason said. He sat unmoving. “He’s dead because he shot himself in the head in college because he couldn’t let Dad find out he was messing with younger high school students. Someone was going to tell Dad if James didn’t pay him. Dad found out anyway. That’s why Dad says I’m his only son.”

“Shit!” Ben hissed.

“James was four years older than me and the fucking started when he was around thirteen and I was nine,” Jim said. “It was always at night, practically almost dawn, with the light out. He damned near suffocated me the first time to keep me from screaming and crying too loud from the pain. I hated him. I always hated him for not doing something for me.”

“Damn, you had it rough,” Ben said, trying to express some degree of comfort. It sounded so unreal to have your big brother raping you when you were only nine. That didn’t sound gay at all; more like Jason’s brother was simply a youthful pedophile practicing for life after leaving home. Jason probably got the shit slapped out of him, too, just so he wouldn’t say anything. He felt something and looked at his thigh. Jason’s hand was there and close to his awakening cock.

“He was my hero and then the very sight of him sickened me,” Jason said. “I actually did get sick for a few days. Nausea and vomiting, I couldn’t keep anything down, but after a week or so I got better and then I got fucked in the night.”

“Jason, can I ask you something?” Ben asked. He watched Jason’s hand lightly stroking him.

“You don’t have to ask,” Jason said, “I know what you want.”

Ben was shocked when Jason lowered his mouth down onto his cock. After a few minutes of increasing ecstasy, Jason moved down onto the floor and knelt in front of Ben.

“You don’t mind do you?” Jason asked.

“Why? I don’t understand,” Ben said.

“Because I think you need it,” Jason said. “Later I’ll clean up and you can do me.”

“No, I want you in me, just the way I want it,” Ben said, not believing what was going on.

“Sure,” Jason said. He lowered his mouth over Ben’s cock.

Ben leaned back and wondered how this was happening; neither of them was gay, well he was quite certain he wasn’t and Jason had no reason to do this.

“Jason? I’m not gay,” Ben said, finally.

Jason pulled off and sat back on his haunches. Their eyes bore into each other as if trying to communicate at some basic level. Jason put both of his hands on Ben’s knees.

“I told you yesterday that you were the faggot in this room,” Jason said with a slight smile. “And, well, I don’t mind doing this stuff as long as you don’t start talking about kissing.”

“Okay, no kissing,” Ben said. “But, will you stop hitting me?”

“Sure,” Jason said. He leaned forward again and went back to work on Ben’s cock.

‘Wow, I thought I was screwed up in the head,’ Ben thought to himself as wonderful feelings swept over his body.

The boy doubled over as unbelievable pain enveloped his abdomen. The old man, who had been demonstrating the correct method for disemboweling a demon, rushed to him. The boy couldn’t believe the amount of agony he was experiencing. This definitely didn’t compare to any of his attempts to injure himself. Finally, unable to bear the fiery knives slicing into him, he simply collapsed onto the grassy field and prayed death would be swift.

The old man knelt by the boy and slowly turned him onto his back. The boy’s abdomen was sliced open from sternum to pubis exposing the gut. He placed his hands over the wound and slowly the incision closed. Obviously, the boy was in no condition for what had to occur right now, but using all of his powers he raised the boy to his feet and removed the pain.

“Time to slay the demon,” the old man said.

I don’t understand.

“Doctors are performing surgery on your body,” the old man said. “I believe that’s where we’ll find the demon.”

There was no flash of light, cloud of smoke, or whirl of wind. They were in the field in front of the cottage and then they were in an operating room at a hospital. The old man carried the spears and the short sword. As naked as when he first met the old man, the boy stood facing the demon.

Close up the black straggly hair hung like dead snakes around the pale face. An unnatural fire flickered in the eyes giving the appearance it wasn’t quite looking straight at the boy. The mouth was filled with long, sharp teeth that already appeared stained with innocent blood.

The boy took a spear and threw it straight and true. The demon made no attempt to block the coming instrument of death, but quietly stood as the point and shaft sunk into its inhuman chest. There was no cry of agony, no whimper of defeat, or shriek of pain. The demon simply sank to its knees and fell forward onto its stomach.

“Come on, I’ll help you roll it onto its back,” the old man said.

The boy followed warily. The demon still looked quite capable of ripping his heart out and squashing his head. Remarkably, the beast was very light, to which the old man mumbled something akin to, “Oh, shit,” but the boy was too busy staying away from the claws which seemed to have a life of their own.

“Open her up,” the old man said. “I don’t think you’ll find anything, but you have to make sure.”

What do you mean her?”

“It’s a female demon,” the old man said. “The breasts are too big for it to be male, not that it makes that much difference because they are created creatures. They don’t breed and don’t have the body parts to do so.”

The boy took the old man’s word for it and stepped up to the horror of his young life. He remembered all the other demons he encountered on the mountain and wondered if they, too, were waiting for him to make a mistake.

“Quit thinking of that damned book!” The old man hissed. “When this is over I’ll give you something to meditate on.”

The boy looked at the old man and then in one swift movement with the sword, opened the abdomen of the demon. There wasn’t anything in the gut, no organs, no blood, water, or anything. It was completely empty.

“I figured that’d be the case,” the old man said. “You’ve been using that book for too long. The demon is already inside your body. Come on, those doctors can’t see what they need to find.”

The boy followed the old man across the room to where his body lay on the operating table. His intestines were out as the doctors searched for the source of the boy’s infection. He could feel their fingers in his gut, but there was no longer any pain; it was more ticklish if anything. Up close the boy could see his problem. A fetal replica of the larger demon was sitting in the empty cavity of his abdomen. The umbilical extended out from its navel and was attached to various places inside the boy.

“Pull it out and behead it,” the old man said flatly. “I’ll work on pulling out its tentacles.”

The boy looked at the fetus; except it wasn’t quite a helpless baby. The claws were clenching, ready to tear into human flesh. The fangs were nearly fully formed sending a chill down the boy’s spine at the thought of being devoured alive from the inside. He grasped the thing by the head and it struggled to free itself. The boy held the demon child up and sliced the sword blade through the neck cutting flesh and bone. The quivering body dropped to the floor.

An unearthly scream erupted out of the heavens and the boy felt himself being swept up and away from the hospital. Yet, there was no spinning of lights, stars, or sensation of physical movement. It did, though, seem to go on for an indeterminate amount of time. It was as if he lived an eternity traveling to an unknown destination, which turned out to be another mountaintop. This one was so high there was no sight of land below, nothing except increasing darkness the further he gazed.

“You have achieved many things with the study of your inner self,” a voice said in his head. “It is unfortunate you chose that book to assist you as we would have provided a guide when the time came. You are impetuous and have the lusts of youth to cloud your mind, but still you have seen us. We wept when you recoiled in fear of us, though it is a blessing you are worthy of our presence. Return to your body in peace.”

Six opened his eyes and became immediately aware of the beep on his heart monitor. Also, he became aware of a hand holding his. He glanced over and saw Uncle Kevin standing beside the bed. He squeezed his uncle’s hand.

Tiffani wanted to be anywhere other than up against the wall with Karl’s hand practically suffocating her. She couldn’t feel the floor under her, but she did feel the fist slamming into her gut. At first she screamed, little good that it would do since everyone was at the hospital welcoming Six back into the world of the living. All she could do was try to focus on something other than Karl’s physical abuse of her body.

She let her mind wander until it came up with something, some alternative to the fist slamming into her stomach. Christmas balls; brightly colored, blown glass Christmas ornaments that used to hang on her grandparent’s tree every year. That’s what the fist felt like.

A thousand shards of glass exploding into her, just like the one she dropped when she was eleven. No one tried to make a big deal about it, but she knew it was one less from the collection. Her mother said that she’d dropped one when she was little, so it wasn’t a big deal. Yet, Tiffani felt very bad and no amount of comforting seemed to help until her grandfather took her on his lap and told her the story of the ornaments.

They’d been married not more than two years and were moving into their first house, which as time would tell, was their only house, the same house Tiffani still visited every Christmas. They went to a rummage sale at the local parish hall, even though they weren’t Catholic, but it was only a few blocks from the house. They didn’t know what they were looking for until they came across two boxes full of Christmas ornaments a young woman was selling. They’d been her grandparents and she had no desire to keep them.

By the end of the story, Tiffani felt better, especially knowing so far everyone in the family had dropped one ornament. It was becoming sort of an odd tradition. You weren’t truly a member of the family until you’d accidently dropped one; and, you weren’t even allowed to help hang them until you were at least ten because children have a habit of dropping things.

“Are you paying attention to what I’m saying?” Karl yelled into Tiffani’s face as another thousand shards of glass flew into her.

The hand around her throat was making her lightheaded and she was afraid she would pass out. She was so close. Was this what death felt like? It seemed so wrong to die at the hands of your boyfriend. They hadn’t even had sex. She had no idea what Karl looked like naked. There were so many things they hadn’t done together.

The slap across her face did little to lessen the inexorable slide down toward the darkness below her feet. There was no bright light. She expected there’d be an angel surrounded by ethereal light welcoming her spirit, but all was darkness. She gave up trying to keep herself aware and dropped away into the nothingness of eternal peace.

She never exactly knew when light eventually enveloped her. It wasn’t spherical like the Christmas ornaments, yet it was still globular, filled with indistinct shadows that floated just beyond her awareness. Tiffani wanted to reach out and touch them and she tried but there was resistance to her movements as if the light wasn’t for her use.

Then voices began to slip into her ears as little roaches might sneak in during the night seeking refuge from predators of their tiny realm. Of course, they were meaningless jumbles of sound, but they were voices, Tiffani could tell that much. Then, just as things were beginning to clear, everything went dark and her mind went into a dreamless sleep.

As before, Tiffani eventually slowly woke, but this time she purposefully kept her eyes shut because there was the chance she was dead and whatever was out there might not be what she’d been told in church. For the past few years, she’d begun to doubt the riches in Heaven and the many houses filled with like believers eternally worshipping God. For some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, it just didn’t make sense, but Hell was perfectly logical. That’s what she feared if she opened her eyes; a fire forever burning the sins from her worthless soul.

“Tiffani, dear, please wake up,” a familiar voice whispered somewhere to Tiffani’s left. “Please dear, for Momma, please open your eyes.”

Was it a trick? She knew all about the Devil. Brother Williams told them every Sunday about how tricky the Devil was. How he’d do anything to reach into your heart and steal away your soul. Brother Williams seemed to know all the Devil’s tricks. Well, you don’t get to be a pastor without having a few of God’s gifts. Brother Williams not only could speak in tongues—well, to admit the truth, nearly everyone at God’s Little Acre Temple of Holy Worship and Praise could speak in tongues—and he could interpret, too. Plus, he knew about the Devil’s works and he was their pastor.

“Please, Tiffani, open your eyes for Daddy,” another familiar voice said on her right.

Daddy didn’t get away from work for just anything. He’d missed most of her life because of his need to be at work doing whatever it was that he did. Frankly, Tiffani never knew exactly what Daddy did between the time he left the house in the morning and came back late in the evening. She just never thought to ask and no one else, including her brothers, seemed to care either. Daddy made money, quite a bit of money, and that was all that mattered.

Tiffani’s internal dialogue continued through all the pleading and holding of her hands. That’s what was strange about all of this; the holding of her hands. Her parents were not touchers, kissers, or huggers. Their church said that any touching between people was fuel for the Devil’s fire in their hearts; a sign that bared their sinfulness to the world. Yet, now her parents, or whoever was touching her, actually wanted her to believe this might convince her to open her eyes. They weren’t going to fool her, though.

Then someone actually opened her eye and shined a light in it as they did on those doctor shows. She blinked. She would’ve smiled, but the tube taped to her mouth prevented that.

“All praise be to God,” Tiffani’s mother said too loudly.

Then, embarrassing Tiffani immensely, her mother continued with a litany of speaking in tongues, “Beezeebee dwim frum,” and other unintelligible sounds. Without an interpreter present, everyone looked at her as if she was some kind of religious freak, which, as Tiffani and Daddy knew, Momma tended to be.

Tiffani squeezed her father’s hand and slightly shook her head.

“Muriam, dear, the doctor and nurse don’t need to hear that,” Daddy said. “You know I don’t have the gift to interpret so your words are falling on deaf ears. If you must to something, go sit in the chair and pray. You have that gift, too, you know. Brother Williams has told you that prayer is your primary gift.”

Tiffani watched Momma as she seemed to shrink at Daddy’s words. She turned away from the bed and sat in the chair, lowering her head, and silently began to mouth words of a healing prayer.

“The police will be in here,” Daddy said. “Was it that Karl guy who did this?”

Tiffani nodded. She thought she loved him, but whatever he did to her besides the suffocation and beating erased that emotion from her mind. She could care about him; she was still enough of a Christian to do that. Forgiveness, she knew, would come in time.