To Have and to Hold - 1. Chapter 1

Tonight I am going to die. I should be scared but I’m not, nothing but anticipation and excitement touches my turbulent heart, that and…. something else, something deeper, something so pure it cuts through everything else and makes it all worth it… Love? Maybe.

I am sitting on the bridge, my feet dangling inches above the water, and looking out over the lake to the fringes of the forest beyond and then, beyond again to the mountains. The sun it setting, a fiery ball sinking into darkness. I will never see another sunset, and I am glad.

Looking back over my life I realise that there really isn’t very much to leave behind. I have no family now, no friends to speak of. My degree means nothing… in this dire financial climate who wants a sickly freak with an art degree? Who wants to buy beauty when they can barely afford food?

There are not even any regrets. I had a happy childhood with parents who loved me, a sister who idolised me, even accepting without question when I told them the hardest thing I ever had to say. They made me feel cherished, loved, valued…. until the day, just before Christmas, when a drunk driver took it all away from me. I had been in the car too, had been hurt pretty badly, but I had survived, survived to go on alone.

A succession of children’s homes, foster parents, false smiles, lack of expectation… nothing was real, none of it. I was never abused, but neither was I ever cherished, ever loved. I was never even understood. I was just.... tolerated.

I had thought that it would get better when I went to university but it didn’t. The sense of not belonging, of being somehow out of step with everyone and everything else persisted and coloured everything I did. My art was…. unique, ephemeral, very beautiful but…. dark and twisted, it’s subject always the same… a shadow, deep and dark reaching out from the past with cold dead fingers.

It was while I was at university I met Kai. He went to all the same clubs and he attracted me because he was as dark as I was. Once I had noticed him I couldn’t help looking for him and he was always there, always looking at me. The fact that he was beautiful helped. I have never seen anyone so beautiful, then or since.

His eyes are so dark they are almost black, sometimes it is hard to tell where the pupil ends and the iris begins, just like his hair, black as a raven’s wing, apart from a single white streak, about two inches wide at the front. I thought at first that it was dyed, like mine, and I wondered how he managed to get the white so white and the black so dark without them soaking into each other, but it was as natural as his pale skin, his slender frame, his sweet gentleness… or was that gentle sweetness?

Ah… he is the home of my thoughts, they always return there no matter what. In those days he was nothing more than a friend, someone that I could talk to, who understood the darkness in my soul. I never told him that I’m gay... I was careful to ensure that the subject never arose because he never gave me any sign, any indication... and I was so afraid that he wasn’t. I didn’t want to drive him away, and at least if I didn’t actually know there was always the possibility.

For three years we shared the burden of university life, sitting up all night talking over a beer, sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings. It was oh so gradual, the change, the fall. At first I didn’t notice it at all, perhaps I chose not to… and then…. and then it was too late.

On the final day I hugged him and looked into those enormous, beautiful eyes and saw…… something indefinable. He smiled although I would swear there were tears glittering in there somewhere. He said that we would meet again when the time was right. He said that when I was ready he would find me. I didn’t understand what he meant, not then. We had never even kissed but I was hopelessly in love and I cried for days.

I had tried to get on with my life but it was empty. It was even more empty than before, because now I knew that it could be filled, it could have been filled. I missed Kai more with every passing day. His eyes haunted my dreams, the thought of his full, soft lips on mine, his long pale hands on my body, the nails, always painted black shining like tiny obsidian knives cutting away the dead parts of my soul. I longed for him with every iota of my being and there was no room for anything or anyone else.

By the time I went looking for him I was an empty shell. My life, my soul were cold, dead. And then I found him. I found more than I had expected and I was shocked to the core of my being… and yet… and yet. He was still the same person I had known and loved, still the same beautiful, soft, strong, dark angel who had filled a place within me that I had believed could never be filled. And when he held out his hand to me I took it.

My rent is paid to the end of the notice period, my bank accounts are closed, all of my possessions, at least those I could not bear to leave behind, are packed in two suitcases in the boot of my car. I have written to all the ‘friends’ who peppered the darkness of my past with moments of brightness and I have said goodbye to my world, my life. I am ready to move on, to let it all go, to die.

The sun sinks into nothingness, the last rays fading, the sky still full of colour. As an artist I can appreciate the colour. I raise my eyes as the first stars poke their way through the velvet darkness, the moon, hanging low over the lake is a pale disc surrounded by a ring of fire. Blood on the moon, how fitting.

As I watch one light fade, replaced by another, paler, gentler one I think again of the life I left behind and I smile. I am ready. I am so ready. There is a fire within, a burning desire that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with love.

I hardly notice the darkness closing in, the cold seeping into my bones, until I shiver and pull my coat tighter around me. The lake is beautiful in the moonlight. There is a path of shimmering silver, reaching from the far bank towards me like a track to salvation… but there is to be no salvation for me… I am to be damned, I was always damned.

I didn’t hear the soft footfalls behind me, I was ignorant of anyone approaching until they sat down next to me, not touching, staring out over the water. I turn my head and my heart burns. He is so beautiful, so cold. He turns and his eyes are full of light. So dark, so deep, so…. He has taken care over his appearance tonight and I can imagine him sitting in front of the mirror, staring at himself and wondering… he has no idea how beautiful he is, none at all. Although it is hard to believe I know that it is genuine and it is a big part of what attracts me to him.

He has not had an easy life. Violence and abuse are all he has known. He has no happy memories of warm arms and welcoming smiles and now he cannot accept them even when they are offered to him. But he is trying. He is learning and I am going to teach him. Lips painted black tilt upwards at the look in my eyes, parting to reveal teeth so neat and white and even that again they seem fake, too perfect, too unnatural.

“Are you ready?”

“As ready as I will ever be.”

“Are you sure? Really sure?”

His voice is like chocolate, deep and smooth, melting me, soothing me. Am I sure? No, of course not. I am not sure of anything, nothing at all, nothing except that I love him with all of my heart, even though I have never felt his lips on mine, never known the touch of his hand, I love him with every part of me and I would have suffered so much more than death to be with him.

“Yes. I am sure. I am really sure.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Why are you doing this? You have it all. A wonderful talent, a home, a future. You have friends and money, you have everything, all the tools you need to make a perfect life. Why do you want to throw it all away?”

Bugger. He had to ask. After all of my care and careful manoeuvring he had to ask me that question. It was the only question I could not answer truthfully without telling him how I feel, and I have never told him how I feel because I have no idea how HE feels, none at all. There have been moments, tensions, possibilities but I have never told him, never let him see…..

I hang my head, glad that the darkness covers the brilliant flush of colour that seeps over me. My heart is beating so fast it is painful and I am almost sure that he can hear it, that he knows what it means. He is silent, and I can feel him watching me, cool as ever, waiting.

“You had to ask.”

“Yes. It is my duty to ask. I have to be sure you are truly ready. It is a big step. You can’t run you know? This is not a way to escape, to run away.”

“I am not running away Kai. I have nothing to run away from. My life is full of dust. Back there I am dead already. In all my life there is only one thing that has ever made me feel truly alive.”

He is looking at me, his eyes outlined with kohl but not needing it to make them huge, dark pools of liquid mercury, silvered by the touch of the moon. They are unreadable and my heart beat picks up even more. How can I speak? How can I stay silent? This is it, the moment of truth. This is where I have to open my heart or walk away. This is what I have longed for and feared for so long. This is IT.

“And what is that?”

He knows. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice which is suddenly tense and husky. Can it be that he is as scared as I am? Can it be that, deep down, he is as uncertain, as gauche, as clumsy? Is it that he is, as I am, afraid, or is it that he is playing with me, using my infatuation to lead me by the nose to my destruction? What if… when we get there, he sends me to oblivion alone, if the last thing I hear in this world is his laughter, his scorn, his denial?

But I have come too far. There is no going back now and, at least… at least then I will know.

“You.”

My voice is a whisper, barely audible, forced past the constriction in my throat. For a moment time is frozen and he stares at me with his strange silver eyes wide, his dark lips frozen in the rictus of a smile.

And then he reaches out. The touch of his hand on my cheek sends an electric shock through me. Suddenly everything is super clear, brittle as ice. The sound of the gentle slap of the waves against the struts of the bridge beneath us, the brush of the breeze lifting our hair, caressing our skin, his eyes losing the silver tint as they move closer, darkening, widening, swallowing my world.

The touch of his lips, although soft, is like a blow, and the world lurches then falls away. His hand moves to the back of my head and my whole body shudders with an involuntary spasm as the tip of his tongue parts my lips and then withdraws, leaving me the option to pursue or go back, but there is no going back, not for me, not now.

Turning to him I throw my arms around him and pull him to me, crushing him against me with all the force I can muster. Clinging to him I grind my lips against his teeth pushing further, further… until he pulls back, laughing.

“Easy tiger. I get the message.”

I am panting, my heart bursting out of my chest. I feel raw, exposed, open as I have never been before and I scan his face, looking for a reason to run, a sign of rejection, betrayal… but all I see is his gentle smile, his beautiful face, his incredible eyes. He is laughing but not mocking, smiling but not triumphant. His eyes are as full of wonder and uncertainty as mine.

“I love you Kai.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure you love me enough?”

“How can you ask? I’ve done it. I’ve said goodbye to my life and left it all behind. I am ready to die… and all for you.”

His face darkens and he turns away, staring over the water towards the moon. “No! It can’t be that. Not for me. I can’t take that responsibility. If you do this it has to be for you, not for me.”

I am suddenly confused. “Isn’t this what you want? I thought….”

“Yes, of course it’s what I want. It’s what I’ve wanted since the first moment I saw you but… but…. I can’t be responsible for taking you down this path, it is too dark. You have to want to do this for yourself, because you think it is the right thing for you. You can’t do this for me. I won’t let you do this for me.”

“I… I… I can’t deny that you have a big part to play in this… how could I? Without you this wouldn’t be, couldn’t be… but…. this isn’t just about you. I have nothing to live for, nothing to leave behind. It was so easy to close the doors, tie up the loose ends. There is nothing to walk away from and everything to walk towards.

“Until just now I had no idea how you felt, whether you felt anything at all. I have known I love you for…. a very long time but I have been afraid to tell you, to show you. There have been moments when I have thought you might feel the same but I have never known, not for sure. It could have been otherwise, it could have been that you are and never have been anything more than a friend…. and I would still have taken your hand and followed wherever you lead.

“You have offered me another way and I am ready to take it, and that is down to me, no one else just me.”

He turns to me and there are tears in his eyes, running down his cheeks, sparkling in the moonlight. Unaccountably horrified I reach out and brush them away.

“Don’t cry Kai, not for me. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. YOU are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I can hardly believe that it is real, that you are real. It has been so long.”

Suddenly he is on his feet. I didn’t see him move but there he is standing over me, outlined against the glittering, star studded sky, his hand reaching. I take it and then we are both standing on the bridge, suspended over the water and then I am in his arms and we are flying.

It is my first kiss. Oh there have been fumbles and experiments. There have been hands on my body and tongues in my mouth but there has never been a kiss, not like this, not a meeting of bodies and souls, a blending of two essences into one intense moment filled with sweetness and fire, nothing like this, never like this.

“You have no idea how much I have wanted this.” His lips are so close to my ear I can feel his breath. He is trembling and it makes my heart soar to think that I could have done that, that I could have had such an effect on this glorious, wondrous being. “I never really let myself believe. It has been so hard.” He laughs. “There have been so many times when I almost…. I wanted to….I never let myself believe.”

“You can believe now. I am all yours.”

Pulling back his head he looks down at me, his eyes scouring my face as if to memorise ever millimetre of it. A slow smile spreads over his face and it is as though the clouds pass from the face of the moon filling him with light.

“I love you.”

“I love you too Kai, more than you can begin to imagine.”

“Oh, I think I can imagine… in fact I am sure of it. Are you ready?”

Although the tone of his voice, the implications it conveys, makes me shiver I smile and nod. He pulls away and takes a step, holding out his hand to me. I take it and follow him into the darkness.

*-*-*

The room is dark, lit only by a dozen candles which give it an eerie, out of the world feel. It is a basement flat so there is no natural light to filter through and the darkness is primal. My suitcases are dumped in the living room, the things they contain that had seemed so important when I packed them are nothing now, nothing at all but a memory of a life that is fading.

He stands before me this god, this demon, this dark angel, his body golden in the candlelight, kissed by flame, not an ounce of spare flesh anywhere, taut and trembling, his erection unnecessary evidence of a desire that is clear in his eyes, that flows from him in tumbling waves of energy that even I, innocent as I am, cannot fail to be aware of.

I am lying naked on my back on the bed. I am not even sure how it happened, how we got here. I remember the drive from the lake, stealing glances as he directed me, watching him hide behind his hair, sending shy smiles to pierce my heart. I remember the steep steps, the cases bumping against my legs as I follow him downwards. I remember an impression of impenetrable darkness, of space, and then his arms were around me, his lips on mine and there was nothing more.

He sits down on the bed next to me and I feel his long supple fingers stroke my chest, my belly. He awakes a fire in me that I didn’t know was there, that I had no idea could be kindled. It burns me but at the same time feeds that dark place in my soul. As his hands move lower I hear myself moan, the sound torn from my lips involuntarily.

“You are so beautiful. I could never have imagined how beautiful you are.”

Beautiful? Me? He is teasing me now, he must be. I am not beautiful, not like he is. My hair is dyed black and needs a good cut, my eyes are washed out grey and even after a heavy hand with the kohl could never look as big and deep and alluring as his. I am too pale, too tall, too heavy, too clumsy, too… and yet… and yet…. His eyes smoulder and burn me into believing.

He touches my face, the gentlest touch, and bends forwards to kiss me, easing his body down next to mine. Where our skin touches, all along the lengths of us, it tingles and burns. His hand moves down from my face, running over my chest, my belly, and, even as his tongue thrusts between my lips it thrusts between my legs and another moan is torn from me as he grasps me tightly in a cool, firm hand.

“Are you still sure?” His voice is husky as he whispers into the corner of my mouth, lifting his head only far enough to free our lips for speech.

“If this is what I can look forward to then…. even more so.”

“Every day, every single day forever, and ever.”

“Then I’m sure. I’m ready.”

Suddenly he has gone very still, suspended above me, his eyes burning in the candlelight, his body cold and hard against me, his lips, the black lipstick smeared like dark blood across his face, parted showing the gleam of hard white teeth beneath.

“You know what comes next?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Is it truly what you want? I could lie with you tonight, pleasure you, and myself. I could worship you, adore you, love you and in the morning you could still be as you are now and I as I am now and we could go on… in a fashion, without ….. going all the way.”

“But that’s not what I want. I don’t was us to go on…. in a fashion. I want to be like you, on the same level. I want to give myself to you completely. I WANT to go all the way.”

“If we do there will be no going back. It will be too late to change your mind. The gift once given can never be taken back.”

“I would never want it to be taken back. This is what I want Kai. I have thought about it and thought about it. This is what I am, who I am and with every atom of my being this is what I want. I don’t want a half life, sneaking about snatching what I can from you, watching you drift away from me in the end. I don’t want to go on like this for one more minute. I want you. I want to be with you forever. Do it Kai. Do it quickly because even though I am sure it is what I want I am still afraid.”

Kai brushes the long strands of hair away from my face, my neck and strokes it with his fingertips. I am shivering partly with anticipation and partly with fear. His eyes are pools of darkness, unreadable. Slowly he nods his head, his eyes never leaving mine. I am mesmerised by them. He is whispering something but I can’t hear. Suddenly my eyes are heavy, my body like lead. I could not move now if my life depended on it, and it does.

The room is spinning around me and I have to close my eyes. Kai is lying across me. He is heavier than I would have thought. I am panting, my chest feels like it is bursting with the effort to breathe.

I feel Kai kiss my neck. He whispers in my ear. “I love you Marc.” I can’t speak, can’t tell him how much I love him, how grateful I am that he loves me. I feel that I am drifting, falling asleep and then the pain hits. It’s shocking, unexpected… well no, not exactly unexpected but…. Aaarggh. My eyes fly open but all I can see is a red mist. My body struggles even as I try to make it stop, try to relax but there is no relaxing against the pain, the tearing, burning pain in my neck.

Almost of its own accord my hand pushes against his chest, my body arches, trying to throw him off but he laces his fingers with mine and pins my arm behind my head. And now the pain is fading, the mist clearing. A warmth spreads over me, a peace so deep I just want to sink into it. I close my eyes and feel like I am floating. I can hear my heart beating, a strong steady rhythm, echoing in my head.

A sigh escapes me as the feeling of disembodiment intensifies. I can no longer feel my body at all, I can’t feel anything. I am floating free. The only sound is my heart but is it fading, getting slower and slower, the sound disappearing into the distance until it stops and then there is only darkness.

Until the pain returns. No longer confined to my throat it rips through me, burning. My chest is on fire, struggling to breathe in air suddenly as thick as tar. My body feels heavy, as though it is a half moulded ball of putty that someone has been pummelling unmercifully. I feel…. cold.

Something touches my lips and I jerk my head away, afraid of the touch, the pain it awakens in me. I feel a hand slide under my head, hold it so that I cannot move and again something soft is pressed against my mouth. It stifles me, terrifies me. I don’t know what to do. I feel my body shaking, spasms ripping through it uncontrollably.

“Marc, you have to drink. If you don’t you will die.”

The voice is familiar, calm and soothing. I am trying to open my eyes, really trying but I can’t, they are glued shut. I am trying to understand. What is expected of me? What am I supposed to do? My body is convulsing, both with the spasms and the struggle to breathe, to keep my heart beating just one more moment, just one more.

“Marc please… you have to….ah dammit!” The soft pressure is removed and I open my mouth gasping for breath and then… and then… something warm and wet drips into my mouth and I drink, I can’t help it… and the pain eases, just a little but then it comes again and the more I drink the easier it gets, the less of a grip the pain has on me. The soft pressure is there again, over my mouth and this time I know what to do. I bite.

It gushes into my mouth, too much to hold although I struggle not to let a single drop escape me. I drink and drink and with every mouthful the pain eases, the spasms release me. I feel a sudden burst of warmth as though sunlight bursts from my heart and flows through my veins instead of blood pumped by the slamming, jarring, stuttering beat of a heart that is kicking back to life with painful intensity.

The pounding in my head calms and falls into a steady rhythm and my breathing becomes easier, deepening. The pain is gone now but it has been replaced by something else, a craving, a thirst. I cannot drink fast enough. No matter how much I take I cannot be full.

The pressure at my mouth pulls back, gently, too gently. I hold on, bite deeper. And now I am strong, I wrench my hand free and hold on, gripping with hand and teeth sucking urgently, drinking deeply and desperately.

As I struggle I become aware of something strange. There is an echo to my heartbeat. It is as though there are two and one is quickening while the other is slowing. As I become aware of it I hear the voice. It is weak, just above a whisper.

“Marc stop. You have to stop now. I can’t fight you without hurting you and I won’t hurt you but if you don’t stop you will kill me.”

It takes a long time for the meaning of the words to filter through my mind, my thoughts are sluggish, like treacle and I am barely aware of anything but the need to drink. And yet… and yet… Memories flash before my eyes. Dark eyes, soft lips, gentle hands touching my body, a gentle being touching my soul and the pain hits. It is not a physical pain this time but a pain all the same. What am I doing?!!

Releasing his arm I let my head fall back and I am aware that he has slumped across me. I can feel the beat of his heart, erratic against my chest. I still can’t open my eyes, can’t speak, can’t move but I am desperate. What have I done? Have I hurt him? Have I… have I… is he…?

I lick my lips, the taste of his blood is sweet, too sweet. Without him there would be no point, without him this was all for nothing, more than that this was a death sentence, damnation, eternity of loneliness knowing I had destroyed the one thing that meant anything to me. With that thought images began to fly through my mind, disconnected, fleeting. My mother, my father, my sister, the face of the driver of the car just before it hit us, my friends at school, at the childrens’ homes, foster parents, social workers, university lecturers, everyone I have known flying past me faster and faster until there is only one, standing before me so beautiful he makes my heart weep and then there is nothing.