valarltd | Writing snippet

This is original, rather homoerotic fiction. (nothing more than kisses)

It's set in the dark future, when Bible-based slavery (not chattel-slavery) is legal in a portion of the former United States Rated PG-13 for gruesome.

David stared in the mirror. He’d spent a sleepless night contemplating this action. The gold ring through his auricle, soldered by James’s hand, gleamed mellowly with memory.

The original had been gold, with an onyx bead. It had matched the rings James wore in his body. That ring was gone, evacuated somewhere over the Atlantic on the day James had offered him his manumission papers. The sound and feel of the pliers in his hand as he removed it still haunted his sleep. Twenty-two years, he’d worn it, bearing the mark of his willing slavery.

Upon their return, James had fixed the solid gold into the piercing, and then shown him the new rings Benta had set for him. At New Year’s, James had come to him, offering to wear the same ring for him, in the same spot. He’d refused, knowing that even with his beloved’s longer hair, such a mark would not stay forever hidden, and that on the day it was revealed, a fair percentage of the world would no longer deal with James. He would not ruin what it had taken years to build, not for a foolish romantic gesture made by a man who did not truly love him.

David stroked the ring, remembering the day James had shoved him against the doorframe of the penthouse. He’d kissed him, eyes burning with dark fire, his large body pressed hard and aroused against him. James drove the sterilized awl through his upper ear without hesitation. He screamed and would have collapsed, but was pinned to the wood by the metal and the big man.

He’d spent four years alone in Philadelphia and a month doing the most menial service to prove his devotion in order to earn those minutes of agony. Once the earring was in, he’d been cast aside, sent to work his way up through the hierarchy. It had taken him a year to reach James again, a year of abuse and being passed from hand to hand.

Now, it came back. Thirty-three years of loving a man who had never loved him, not for a moment of it. All of his adult life, very literally, as he’d been arrested on his eighteenth birthday for computer piracy. James had come to him in the Boston jail, as old then as he was now, but looking barely thirty.

He’d been sent away, passed around, sold, offered his freedom and made use of. He’d murdered, robbed, trained and committed atrocities for his lover. Now, he’d been passed on again: a simple transfer from father to son, not even a sale.

And Corban wanted his father’s marks off his slave.

David stared at the scalpel. It curved beautifully sharp in the cold light of the bathroom. So simple to open a vein, end all the chaos and go back to Italy in the hold of the plane. To lie senseless forever in a plain box, eight spaces from where James would be placed, a row up and four over from where his sweet Valerio lay, two years underground now. So simple, too, to kill the boy and offer his life to James’s hands. He had no doubt the second would be protracted and painful.

Why then was it so hard to cut a quarter inch of skin and cartilage? Why did it feel as if he’d been ordered to cut out his heart and place it, still warm and beating, in Corban’s hands?

The boy loved him, he knew that. He’d known it from the second Corban defied him over the trip to Italy. He stared at the ring and the scalpel. The father who had never loved him or the son who did? The man who had broken his heart twice or the man who had put it back together? The man he loved or the one who loved him?

He picked up the scalpel and set the point of it in the earring’s hole. He was the Butcher of Cairo, the Despair of Italy. He had killed fifty thousand people; a quarter inch of his own flesh was nothing. He pulled out most of the way, leaving on the skin at the edge of the auricle. He disposed of the scalpel and went to find Corban before too much blood flowed.

The young man was going over some work, seated in his chair and looking amazingly like James. That made it easier.

“Master,” David said, softly. When Corban looked up, before he could say a word, David seized the ring, set his jaw and resolve, then yanked the gold out of his body with a half-scream through his clenched teeth. He proffered the bloody ring, tears and more blood streaking his face and neck, drenching the collar of his shirt. “Yours.”

“Oh David.” There were tears, briefly, in Corban’s own eyes as he watched. He had expected this, but not so bloodily and not so soon. He leaned forward and kissed the man, then pressed his lips to the torn ear. “Have the doctor see to you. I’ll make breakfast and some other preparations.”

Low and urgent, David said, “If you please, my master, I’d rather you took me, now, as I am--bleeding and in pain for you. When a man cuts out his heart, the least the recipient can do is eat it.”

Corban looked at him sternly. “That was an order, lover, not a request. I have another task when you return.”

David rose, beginning to wonder if he’d miscalculated and whether he should have applied the scalpel to his throat instead. He set the ring noisily on the glass tabletop. “Cruel boy,” he remarked as he left.

He refused the doctor’s offer to repair the cut. He wanted the notch, a reminder that he was indeed livestock, a receipt for the price of folly. He allowed himself to be bandaged and cleaned before returning.

Corban met him at the door with a long kiss. “I have one last thing for you to do. Take the ring upstairs and return it to my father.”

David nodded and picked up the ring wordlessly. He could do this. He would do this. He turned the elevator key for the penthouse.

“James?” he asked stepping out onto the small landing.

“What is it?” The voice from the sofa was infinitely weary, grief heavy in it. David flinched at the sound. This would be like kicking a wounded puppy. The man was already mourning the impending death of his wife. He ached to take his beloved in his arms, hold him and bear him through the pain that he would face in the next weeks.

Instead, he went around front of the couch. He hoped his voice was steady. “My new master has ordered a complete cleaning of his property.” He made sure James could see the bandages and held out the blood-stained ring. “I have been ordered to return what is yours to you.”

A flicker of pain passed over Ligatos’s face so fast David was not sure he’d actually seen it “Smart boy. Leave it and go.”

David laid the ring very gently on the coffee table, making no noise at all. “Good-bye, James.” He rose and left, desperate to kiss his lover, knowing he never would again.

In the elevator, it all crashed in. He wept into the crook of one arm and pounded the other fist against the wall. He was blotchy, but dry-eyed when he stepped into his own apartment, Corban’s apartment now.

Corban was standing beside the table, on which lay some bits of metal. David recognized them as branding dies, commonly used by those who preferred not to use the stencil-and-strike method. He shook, his knees weak.

Corban came to him and folded him in his arms. “Have you been crying, lover?” he asked softly. David nodded and clung to him, the tears coming again. “It’s all right. You’ve been very brave this morning. Just a little longer.”

David regained control of himself quickly. “Forgive an old man in pain, my master.”

Corban kissed him, insistent and slow. “Nothing to forgive, David. You’re mine now. And I’m going to mark you in a way that is not so easily removed.”

“Nothing easy about it.” David’s face still resembled a tragic mask, and Corban did not let go of him.

“I know. I know,” Corban soothed, stroking his hair around the damaged ear. “And I love you for what you’ve done. Now a choice: you can have my initials or a design of my choosing.”

David shook his head. “Yours, Master. Mark me to your liking. Mark me with your initials, mark me slave or whore. I will wear it.”

Corban smiled. “Yes, you will. Strip.” David removed the blood-soaked shirt, his shoes and pants. He folded them neatly and waited. “Go to the bed.” When he complied, Corban tied him, firmly but not painfully.

David smiled, trying to be brave. “Does the condemned get a cigarette and a blindfold?” Corban kissed him instead. He gripped the ropes. “Thank you. I don’t want to move and spoil it. Not if I’m wearing it forever.” He shut his eyes and breathed deeply as Corban lit the small welding torch and began heating the first die.