Chapter 14: An Interview Gone Wrong
The nap did me good. When I awoke, it was dusk. I showered, dressed, cleaned the mess I had made on the rug, and returned to the couch to get on with reading my book in earnest. Two sentences in, there was a knock on the door.
"C'mon in," I called. Was this day never to end?
It was him.
He walked into the room, preceded by his aroma, took the chair from the desk in one hand, brought it over to right in front of my place on the couch, turned it backwards and sat, resting his elbows on its backrest. He was inches from me. Did this guy have no sense of the personal bubble?
"What brings you here?" I asked, trying to keep the surprise at his presence out of my voice.
"How's the research coming, champ?" he asked, simply.
"Pardon?" That he was there was shocking enough. I could have expected him to say anything -- anything but that.
"What research?" I asked, not knowing what else to say.
"Don't play games," he said. "It's boring."
"You know about my research?"
"Of course."
"How do you know about my research?"
"Johnston told me."
"Johnston told you? He told you?"
"Of course."
"But I asked him to keep it in confidence. Why would he tell you about it?" ...and betray me, I did not add. Why ?
"Because I wanted him to," Adam replied, simply.
The silence of my reply was so deep, so profound, that we could actually hear the crickets outside begin to chirp as the sun set. I took a deep breath -- a breath that was saturated with the heavy syrup of his presence.
"I thought you'd want to interview me," he said. "But you never came to talk with me. Figured I'd help you out."
"I...ummm...I can't talk with you about it."
"Sure you can, champ."
"No. You see...it will taint the research. I can't interact with my study subjects."
"Freud did case studies, champ. You telling me he didn't interact with his patients?"
Freud? Freud?! Fuck! He has read Freud? Who was this man?! His musk was making my nostrils itch. I saw that I had drawn my knees up as I sat on the couch, and had crossed my arms. I was doing my best, subconsciously, to defend myself against him. Would it work? I played for time.
"You want a drink?"
"Can't. Bad for training."
"Can I have one?"
"Of course."
I withdrew to the galley, and poured myself a scotch stiffer than I would normally have fixed. One good gulp focused me. I took the rest over to the couch, where I sat forcibly willing myself into a non-defensive, open posture.
"So you want to ask me questions?"
"I...ahhhh...questions. Sure. I guess. I can ask you questions." I downed the rest of the glass, then went over to the desk to retrieve the notebook and a pen.
I sat down before him again. He was wearing sweat pants and a used, thrift store-found mechanic's shirt, pale blue, with a patch reading Dave on the right breast. The top button was undone, and the shirt, untucked, hung away from his chest as he leaned on the backrest of the chair. His skin had taken on a glow in the sun. The cleft between his pectorals disappeared into darkness, calling the eye to follow. His aroma was almost visible as a force. My dick responded, as if being summonsed.
"Let's see," I said, trying to clear my head of the effects of his tang. "So why do you think I'm doing research?"
"Because I can make people want things," he said matter-of-factly.
Interesting, I thought. Those were the words Brad had used as well. Not that he could make people do things, but that he could make people want things. I wrote those words in my notebook and underlined them.
"How long have you known you could?"
He shrugged. "As long as I can remember."
"Let me ask you a different way: when did you realize you could make people want things?"
"I never did," he answered. "When I was around eight, though, I realized other kids couldn't."
"Did you think you were magic?"
"Naw," he said, thinking about it for a moment. "I knew it wasn't magic. It would have been magic if I could have gotten people to do things when I wasn't around. I used to try that. I'd sit in my room and concentrate on wishing that one of my parents would come upstairs, or that a friend would call, or something. Never worked."
"But it did when you were around them?"
"Of course."
"Like, you could make them do things they normally wouldn't if you weren't around?"
"Yes."
"What was it like to be able to influence other kids like that?"
"Well, at first it was normal. Then, like I said, I figured out it wasn't normal. Then it was cool. Then it got boring."
"Boring," I asked? I would have expected a lot of adjectives. That was not one of them.
"Yes. If you can do everything, why do anything? Do you understand what I mean?"
"I...I'm not sure I do," I said, wanting him to flesh out the thought.
"I went through a phase where I turned into a little prick. If you can make people do things, you do. Then it gets boring. Then you start to test the limits. Then it gets dangerous. I fucked up this one kid pretty good," he said. "It was bad. Took me a long time to set right."
"How did you get out of the phase?"
Adam shrugged his shoulders. "I felt bad about the kid. It scared me what I could do. So I decided to see if I could use it to help people instead."
"Help people?"
"Yes."
"Use your powers for good rather than evil?" I asked sarcastically.
His broke into his tight-lipped grin. "Something like that," he said.
Really. The idea. Help people? Like fucking Corey? Like prick-teasing both me and Matt? I was, I realized, glad that he was talking. It was very interesting, and he was right, I suppose. Case studies did include interviews -- though not blow jobs, I added, reminding myself that there were still boundaries. But while I was happy he was talking, I was surprised. Surprised that he would permit it, and surprised by his self-delusions. Help people?
"What does it feel like when you...I don't know how to put it...exercise your power?"
"It doesn't feel like anything," he said. "I'm not an X-Man, champ. It's not like I squint my eyes and make people explode."
"Too bad," I said, "that'd be cool, wouldn't it?"
He laughed. It was, I realized, the first time I had heard him laugh freely and easily. I found myself strangely...what was the emotion...proud?
Satisfied? Gratified? I had made him laugh, and it felt unnaturally good. My dick jumped again within the confines of my shorts. Stop that, I thought. Down boy.
"So how do you try to help people?"
"I figure out what they need, and I help them get it."
"And how do you do that?"
Adam shrugged again. "Don't know, champ. That's why you're here."
"You mean..." I started the sentence without the end of it in mind. There was a logical conclusion I could make, if only I could think clearly. That's why I'm here? I was here because Johnston needed an assistant, and I fit the bill. Wasn't that why I was here? That I was doing research was why I wanted to come, not why Johnston wanted me to come. He wanted me because...because...why did he want me? I mean, there were hundreds, probably thousands of hot-to-trot gay guys out there who would actually have paid him to do the job I was doing. Why did he seek me out? The answer finally clicked into place, and I continued the sentence I had begun. "...You mean you were the one that asked Johnston to hire me?"
"Of course."
My world was almost completely upside down. Adam had engineered my presence? That was one to consider later, when I was alone and in full possession of my faculties, not overcome with...him. Instead, I pursued a different avenue.
"So you believe you're helping people by making them do things that they wouldn't normally do?"
"It's not what I believe. It's what happens."
"Well, that makes it easier, doesn't it? I mean, if you're going to manipulate people, it's certainly safer to believe that you're doing it for their own good."
Adam grinned and shook his head, condescendingly. "What you don't know about people is a lot, champ."
I? What I don't know about people? Surely he was joking. This guy was a piece of work. I found my ire rising despite myself. Having put my anger with him to rest earlier that day, I felt it returning with a vengeance. 265 people applied for my graduate program. 14 were chosen, and I was the first one among them. I didn't know about people? I'd been published, for Christ's sake.
"Be that as it may," I said, putting down my pen, "I would hardly characterize the rape of a 14-year-old boy as `helping'."
"You mean Corey?"
"How many 14-year-old boys do you have to choose from, `champ'?" I shot back. Granted -- it was a bit unprofessional what I was doing. Still, it was satisfying.
Adam looked at me, surveying my face. Something changed in him -- I can't explain what it was. The set of his eyebrows? The attitude of the corners of his mouth? The flare of his nostrils? I got the impression he was asking himself a question, engaging in an internal dialog to which I was not privy. We sat there, looking at each other, in silence. His eyes, though immobile as they gazed into mine, were busy. I don't know how else to put it. They didn't have the power that they normally held. He was concentrating within, which made them look...normal, vacant. But then, with equal rapidity and for reasons as inexplicable, the fire returned. His face changed again, as he turned back out to the world -- which is to say his focus turned wholly and inescapably on me.
"Let me tell you about Corey, champ," he said, chewing the consonants of the last word, "Corey is going to be one hell of a gymnast. Wouldn't be surprised in the least if he took the all-around in 2008 -- he could be that good. But he was turning into a major asshole, and he was headed for trouble. He was in ninth grade, and was beginning to think he was the biggest shit in the world. All his successes went to his head, and he didn't know how to handle it. It totally fucked him up. He beat the crap out of a kid, you know? Some little freshman. Total nerd. The kid hadn't done anything. Corey just beat the shit out of him because he could. The kid was younger, small for his age, and Corey was pretty strong -- even then. Corey walks up to the kid in the hall during a passing, and starts calling him a faggot and telling him to stop checking him out. The kid's totally humiliated, right? I mean, I don't even know if it was true or not, whether the kid was gay, but that's beside the point. Then Corey starts whaling on him right there in front of everyone, and he doesn't stop. Fucking high school, man. No one does anything -- they all just watch this poor kid get pummeled. So when I found out, I taught him a lesson. He needed to be taught it. And it worked. He's been pretty right-sized since then. Only needs a reminder every once in a while that he's not the fucking big man on campus he thought he was for a while there."
"'Cause that position would be taken by...let's see, that would be you, right?" The sarcasm dripped from my voice.
"Man," Adam said, shaking his head again, "you just don't get it, do you? You think you know people. You go to a fancy school and you're getting a fancy degree, and you think you're so smart because you can read fast and use big words in papers. Well let me tell you something, champ. Being able to snow your readers isn't the same as knowing people. You don't learn to know people by reading books or going to classes or writing papers. And you don't learn to know what people need by fitting them into your neat little categories, or matching them to your little store-bought theories. You do it by studying people. You do it by watching them, and listening to them."
"And that's what you've been doing?"
"That's right, champ. While you've been in your libraries with your books, I've been with people, watching them, studying them. And I've been doing it since I was eight. So don't give me this holier-than-thou attitude you got going, especially when you yourself are so fucked up."
"I'm fucked up?! Christ!" I shot back. "You're not Good Will Hunting, you know, and I'm not the guy in the coffee house. And I'm sure as hell not Robin Williams. For one thing, I don't have the hair for it. So don't you give me this `I know what's best for you' crap. You don't know me, and you have no fucking idea what I want or need. So shut the fuck up."
Adam stared at me, assessing, judging. I was breathing heavily, the tension having built up from my fury. A beat passed, then two. Finally, he smiled his tight-lipped smile, some decision having been made. He reached out with his right hand. At first I thought he was going to strike me, but instead he brought it to my face, and gently stroked my cheek. His eyes, again depthless pools of molten intensity, bore into mine capturing them in their gaze. His fingers were warm where he cupped the side of my face, drawing his hand forward toward my chin, pulling at the razor stubble on my jaw. My skin tingled where his hand made contact, yearned for more when it had passed.
I was enraged and knew I was enraged. I had just been dealt the most mortal insult it could have been possible to proffer, and rather than reacting, I was allowing him to touch me -- tenderly, enticingly. Why was I unable to protest? My brain raced while my eyes, compelled to be lost in his, forgot to blink. The smell was gone, I realized. But it couldn't be. I must have acclimated to it, the way even new paint will become unnoticeable after an hour. It was working its magic on me without my even being aware of it. Why couldn't I stop him? Why did it feel so good? It was just his hand on my cheek.
His hand on my chin, now, he extended his middle finger, and ran it over my lips. I shivered from the delicacy of his touch. Despite myself, to my own horror, my lips parted, and his finger entered my mouth. The taste! It was sharp and dark and salty. It had the smokiness of whiskey, the smoothness of chocolate, the primal affect of raw meat.
He was talking. I know he must have been. I saw his lips move. My ears registered no sound, but my mind heard him. "Open up," he was saying, "let me in." His finger found my tongue, tracing the bumpy surface of it. With his forefinger and thumb, he held my chin in place. My lips pursed, kissing the second knuckle of his middle finger, my tongue curled around it as it slid within me.
No, the rational part of my brain was shouting! This can not be happening, and it must not continue! It was degrading, it was impossibly degrading. He can not insult me, then expect I will melt before his onslaught. But rationality was not in control here. Rationality had no sway. Instead, the totality of my world was his eyes, his taste, his feel.
With his finger still in my mouth, he rose from the chair and walked around to my side of it, leaning back against the backrest. He was above me, now, looking down, down into my eyes, down into my soul. His left hand took my hair, forcing my head back, opening my mouth. He began to slide his finger in and out, fucking my mouth with it. A second finger joined, exploring my teeth, my cheeks, my lips. And I let him. His grasp on my hair tightened, and he drew me back farther to the point of pain. He withdrew his fingers from my mouth, now overflowing with saliva and desire. He drew his arm back, and, holding my head firmly in place with his grip on my hair, slapped me fully and hard across the cheek. The sting brought tears to my eyes, which served only to blur my already clouded tunnel vision. He slapped me again, the crack of the contact thundering in my ears. Still, I said nothing. I did not resist, I did not withdraw. A third wind up, a third slap, and my cheek was on fire. I did not complain, I did not ask why. Instead, when he then brought his palm gently back to cover my face, I found, to my horror, I was kissing it, worshiping it with my lips.
Again, he entered my mouth, violating me with three fingers this time. He was rougher now, demanding, possessing. He fucked my mouth with his fingers, robbing me of my will, raping me. In and in and in. He was all contact, all surface, all insistence. I was nothing but a receptacle. He bent, bringing his face impossibly close to mine. His breath was hot and sweet. A tear had formed at the side of my eye, and began to roll down my cheek. Closing the few remaining inches, his broad tongue emerged, and licked the tear and its path from my face in one wide, slow stroke. He took his sopping fingers from my mouth, again taking hold of my chin and lowering it. He brought his lips to mine, and stopped, a sixteenth of an inch above them. I reached for him with my lips, my head, my soul. But I was held immobile between his grips on my hair and my chin. I struggled to rise, to meet his lips, to be taken by him, but he would not let me.
Again, my brain registered a word without my ears registering a sound. Those lips, so close to mine, so achingly close but out of reach, had given me a command. "Cum," they had said.
And cum I did. Waves of intensity passed through my body as, despite the fact that it was the third time that day, spasms of ejaculate were forced from my balls. I could not breathe, my toes cramped. Still, Adam held my head, still he held himself close enough so that I could feel his heat, but not taste him, or find satisfaction in contact. I twitched and jerked until the pain of the orgasm passed.
Adam let me go, pushing me back into the couch as he did. He turned to walk to the door. "You should think about what you want, champ," he said. "Here's a clue if you`re having trouble: you just got off without even touching yourself. Why do you think that is?" Letting himself out, he turned back one more time and said, "in the meantime, until you figure it out, stay away from Matt."