Lucian Ch. 04

He didn't answer.

"One day," she went on. "One afternoon he came home with a shiner and bruises. He begged me not to go to the school and complain. He also refused to change schools again, as we had done twice before. Starting anew was worse than staying, he said."

Lucian nodded, wishing he were elsewhere. The story was too close for comfort.

"A week before that day I'd heard about this school," Kurtz went on. "Norton's, I mean. They'd opened only a few years earlier. So I showed him a flyer and asked him to at least go and see."

She sighed, sitting more upright.

"He didn't want to. He was adamant. He was no faggot, not a fucking sissy, he said. And when I went on about it, he fled to his room."

There was silence, filled with far off laughter and soft music.

Lucian saw her hands clasp and unclasp in her lap. He wanted her to stop. He wanted out.

"Please," he said, raising a hand. The jingling bracelets tumbled down his forearm.

Kurtz's gaze seemed to re-focus, returning from a far away place.

"I'd like to return to the party," he said. "I really am sorry for your son, but..."

Kurtz jumped to her feet, almost stumbling. Her eyes were huge; her hands reached out for him.

"No!" she hissed. "You listen to my story. It is as much about you as about my son."

Almost physically repelled by her vehemence, Lucian fell back into the club chair. The woman in front of him stood with balled fists and high shoulders. She trembled as tears ran down her face.

Medea, he thought. Or what was the name?

She looked like an ancient Greek avenger in her long gown, her face ghastly pale, her eyes dark with smudged mascara, her mouth a bloody gash.

"He... he hanged himself, you know?" she whispered. "In... in his room, all alone, alone. His beautiful face swollen and purple; his sweet, lovely body broken -- hanging like a sack. Life gone, beauty gone..."

She stood, arms wide, eyes empty.

Lucian felt a force pulling him out of the chair, up to his feet and on to the woman. A force from outside it seemed, beyond his will. It made him want to embrace her. But Kurtz fought him, muttering "no, no..."

Her fists punched his chest.

He felt awkward, not knowing what to do, but not knowing how to stop either. So he closed her into his arms, hugging as he felt his own tears ruin his make up.

They stood and cried for minutes.

Dr. Kurtz's resistance melted, her padded body pressing into his now. She felt soft, like down -- no bones there, just weak, shifting flesh. So very different from Drew, so very different from his mother.

Then again, when had she ever hugged him?

"You are so much like him, Lucian," she mumbled into his shoulder. "I am so glad your mother saved you by sending you here. She must love you very much."

Lucian stiffened.

Then his body started shaking with laughter. He pushed the doctor away, looking into her red-rimmed eyes. He couldn't stop laughing; it made new tears run down his face.

"Love," he hiccupped. "Love indeed."

Kurtz just stared -- confused by his reaction. Lucian stopped laughing.

"My mother," he said, "not only doesn't love me. She doesn't even hate me. She dumped me here so I would be out of her way. I am an embarrassment. My father would have me killed if he knew he'd get away with it."

The doctor shook her ruined face from left to right.

"No," she said. "You're wrong. She loves you, Lucian, believe me. She is like me. The way she talked about you when she was here the first time had us both in tears, Ms. Parker and I. She really cares about your life and your future. We feel honored she trusts us with your fate."

'And her money,' he couldn't resist thinking.

"I need to get out of here," he said. "I really need to."

But Kurtz didn't let him go. She held on to him with her arms and her weak, yielding body.

"We love you, Lucian, all of us," she breathed. "And we can save you. You must believe that."

Her mouth was close to his ear, hot breath tickling it. Lucian was very aware of her soft breasts, her thighs and round belly pressing through two thin layers of fabric, spreading heat.

He wrestled until he was free. He felt he was blushing deeply as his hands automatically smoothed his dress.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I really must..."

And then he moved past her, hearing his platform heels rattle the wooden floor as he stumbled to the door, opening it and running down the corridor.

'Fuck!' his mind repeated. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Lucian?"

He looked up, stopped by a hand on his arm. Harper's eyes hid in dark eye shadow and mascara, hooded by his bluish-black bangs.

"God, you look awful!" he cried out. "What happened? Did you cry?"

Lucian tore his arm free, wanting to pass, but the boy blocked his way.

"Come," he said, pulling Lucian with him into a restroom.

"No," he said, but Harper clucked.

"You really don't want to show them that face," he said, pushing Lucian in front of a mirror.

He was a mess -- his hair, his face, and his lips. The rims of his eyes were red and swollen; dark traces ran down his pale cheeks.

His nose had pink blotches.

Fingers touched his chin and pulled his face aside. The moist dab of cool, fragrant cotton made him shiver as an experienced hand started to cleanse his skin. The next moments were a whirl of action.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the reflections of a beautiful olive-skinned teenage girl restoring the make up of this other beautiful curly-blond teenage girl.

He groaned. The other girl giggled.

***

Snow came the next day.

It turned the park into a fairytale landscape with the ancient building at its center, windows spilling golden light over the white expanse.

The fat, dancing flakes had an age-old effect on the Bobs. They ran outside in the early morning, screaming and throwing snowballs or soaping their classmates with scoops of the chilly powder. Yesterday they'd been giggling teenage girls, today they wrestled and pushed and pummeled while Barbs huddled on the steps, shrieking comments while shivering in their woolen shawls.

The boys had ran out in just their silk nothings, but no one seemed to care as they rolled and slid and tumbled through the snow -- cheeks ablaze and skin tingling.

Then the group of Barbs opened up and from its midst came Parker, dressed in a long fur coat. She clapped her hands.

"That's enough boys, get inside," her thin voice cried out. "Enough of this."

And to Lucian's surprise all raucous activities stopped at once. He stood panting, his heart racing -- a huge snowball ready to throw. Feeling the melting snow slide down his face and legs, he watched the boys turn back into sweet smiling, gracious creatures patting down each other's clothes and walking up the steps to join the Barbs. They greeted their headmistress with a little bending of their knees.

He shook his head to clear his hair from newly falling flakes. Dropping the snowball he followed them inside.

That day there was neither running, nor gymnastics.

Wearing pastel, tight-fitting ski outfits a big group of Bobs and Barbs filed into the snowy expanses for a cross-country hike on skis. They left the property through a small gate at the back, and skied in a long, meandering line through the white, rolling landscape.

Lucian watched the clouds leaving their mouths against the clear blue sky as they all chattered and laughed, pushing and pulling their long skis through the snow. The air, the laughter made him feel weird, but it was an easy weirdness -- a feeling he had no name for.

Was it freedom? Elation?

It was a bit of what he felt while running, but more. There was the physical exhilaration -- the being outside in a wide, white expanse, cold air kissing his cheeks, making his exposed skin stiffen and his fingers tingle inside his gloves.

But that wasn't all of it.

There was safety in the feeling, a soothing sensation that made his shoulders relax, and his lips smile. Everything anyone around him said was funny -- every face he saw looked kind.

Maybe the word that eluded him was 'belonging.'

He felt part of a group. There was no pressure, no need to be someone else, somewhere else. Of course he was out there in an outfit that was tight and shining and candy-colored. But he didn't care. They were sports tights, weren't they? Runners wore them, and athletes.

"Hey, psssst, honey!"

The sound came from his left and he'd already slid past it before he realized what the male voice said. Looking back he saw a man waving at him as his tongue danced lewdly in the O of his open mouth.

Lucian bent his back and sped forward without looking, hitting Harper's skis. They both fell into the snow, soon joined by two other Bobs, creating a heap of bodies with skis and poles pointing in all directions.

They looked like a giant, colorful hedgehog.

When the first shock subsided, they laughed, trying to extract themselves from the knot of limbs and things, rubbing cold snow into each other's faces in the process. Lucian felt a hand in his armpit, pulling him up, and another hand squeezing his butt. He jerked his head around and saw the face of the man that had 'pssst' him before. The guy smacked his lips and winked as his hand squeezed harder, sliding forward to find Lucian's crotch.

Lucian cried out, pulling himself free. Then he raised his hand and made his ski-pole land with a crash on the man's face.

Not pausing to see what he'd done, he turned away and pushed his skis forward to find the track and disappear over the next hillock. 'Fuck you, fuck you!' his mind repeated as he pushed and pushed until he reached the skiers in front of him and overtook them.

He never stopped until he came back to the school's entrance.

***

"Meet Mister Landowski, Lucian."

Ms. Parker's face floated high and distant above her strict, gray suite. She didn't smile. Her hand was raised, palm up, and presented a man in a brown jacket.

Lucian saw he was the man who'd groped him at the cross-country track. He looked quite different, though. His face showed a fiery diagonal weal that ran from his left eyebrow to the right side of his chin. The brow seemed split, and his lower lip sported a dark, blood filled boil. One eye was closed.

Lucian returned his gaze to Parker.

"Don't you have something to tell Mr. Landowski?" she asked.

He once more took in the man's wounded face, and shrugged.

"Maybe something like: 'I'm sorry'?" she went on.

He shrugged again.

"What should I be sorry for?" he asked.

The headmistress didn't seem to like his response. Her fleshy face darkened, and so did her eyes.

"Mr. Landowski here just told me," she said, "that while helping you up after falling, you hit him with a ski pole, right in the face. He had to see a doctor to have his eye brow stitched."

She shook her head in wonder.

"What on earth came over you, Lucian?" she asked.

Lucian again looked from the one to the other.

"He's a liar," he then said.

Parker's eyes widened.

As no one said anything, Lucian explained:

"He didn't tell you how he groped my ass and my balls. I just had to defend myself."

The man shook his damaged head vigorously.

"I never...!" he protested.

"Of course not, Mr. Landowski," Parker interrupted. "As I already told you Norton's Academy of Excellence deeply regrets what happened and offers you our heartfelt apologies as well as a modest compensation. Lucian?"

She frowned, looking at him. He wondered if she'd ever smile again. His eyes focused on the piece of paper in Barnes' hand -- a check by the look of it.

"Apologize, Lucian," Parker said. "Tell the gentleman you're sorry and thank him for his help. This is all very embarrassing."

Lucian agreed with the embarrassment, but he doubted Parker meant the same he did.

"He's a damn pervert," he said. "Why would I ever thank him, or apologize? He's a fucking dirt bag."

Lucian trembled.

He felt nude in the short robe he wore over his thong. Parker had summoned him to her office right after he'd showered, not allowing him to dress. And now he stood half naked in front of the man he had fled from because he groped him in public.

And Parker said he should say sorry.

He turned around to leave the room. Coach was between him and the door, slowly shaking her head sideways. She was twice his width and two heads taller.

He turned back to Parker.

"I won't apologize," he said. "He should."

The room fell silent.

Lucian sensed all eyes on him; it made him feel afraid and alone. But he was right, wasn't he? The man had taken advantage of him, feeling him up as he pretended to help him.

Or was he wrong?

He looked around when he heard the door opening. Drew came in. She wore a thin white, almost childish mini dress; it flared where its hem touched her upper thighs. The shimmering fabric accentuated her nipples. They seemed swollen.

Her hair had been parted and braided into two tails that stood sideways away from her head. Her face had been scrubbed from any trace of make up; her feet wore white bobbysocks.

It made her look scandalously young.

Walking over to Parker she curtseyed, raising the hem of the dress as she did. She was naked under it.

"You called me, Ms. Parker," she said.

Parker nodded.

Then the headmistress moved her head in the direction of the man with the wounded face, nodding again. Drew's eyes followed the nod. She stood and took in the man before slowly walking over to him on her bare feet.

In front of him she went down on her knees.

Her hands found the buckle of his belt, opening it. Then she undid his zipper and pulled down his pants with one hand while pulling his penis through the slit in his boxer shorts with the other. It was red and swollen, contrasting with her pale hand.

Drew leant forward and inhaled the exposed head, making it slide past her lips.

A wet sucking filled the silent room.

Lucian wanted to move; he also wanted to scream, but he did neither. He felt as if strangled by coils of rope wrapping themselves around him. They only left his eyes free to watch -- and watch.

He felt sick; his throat was a desert.

***

Panting, Lucian pushed his body into a last sprint back to the main building, savoring the easy, supple bending and stretching of his body.

Winter had been a short-lived phenomenon at Norton's.

After two weeks of frost, followed by days of sudden thaw only the paths and lanes still showed slippery remnants of dirty snow where feet and wheels had packed it down. The rest of the park was covered in mud and soggy grass. In the wet, black trees cold water leaked from shards of glassy ice, sometimes hitting his neck, sending shivers down his spine.

As his legs moved automatically, his mind turned back to the scene that seemed etched on his memory -- Drew's face being fucked by a man's hard cock in Ms. Parker's office. The picture kept returning, swimming through his days and nights.

He shook his head to get rid of it, but all it ever did was recede.

He remembered every detail his eyes saw and his ears heard: the huge cock slamming past wide-open lips -- the bulging of the narrow throat; the wet gagging; the oozing threads of saliva. The man's hands had been on her head, his fingers clawing her skull as he pulled her in.

The numbness he'd felt watching still spread whenever he remembered.

Like then it made it impossible for him to think.

Only much later did he realize this must be what Drew called 'just chores.' He wondered if this was what Parker meant with apologizing. Should it have been him kneeling and taking the ugly cock in his mouth?

Why Drew? Why didn't they force him?

'We are poor, you are rich,' he remembered Drew saying.

Had he been naïve supposing those chores were just making the beds, raking the leaves and serving the food? Had he been childish to think that was all? He'd stared and watched as gray-white slime drooled out of Drew's mouth.

Remembering how she'd choked on it, he could only admit he'd been a fool.

The sight of her cleaning the fat, blood gorged penis with her tongue made reality crash past his numb defenses. He turned and ran out of the office -- never stopping until he was in his room, in his bed, the blanket pulled over his head.

During the days that followed it had been easy to avoid Drew, as he never saw her. But he couldn't look at the other Barbs without seeing them in Drew's position, sucking cocks of faceless strangers, choking on their sperm.

And what about the boys?

Watching sweet Charlie using a fat lipstick on his pillow-lips in Beauty class made him look away, feeling sick. Noticing Jo pushing out the tip of his pale tongue while concentrating on plucking his eyebrow caused a rush of nausea.

He knew it didn't just come from disgust; it came from imagining them in Drew's place. And if he could imagine them doing that, what about him?

Parker of course summoned him to her office the next day.

He expected to be punished, but he wasn't. She told him she understood. She believed him about the groping even if she could never condone his violent reaction.

He'd asked her about Drew. She'd smiled, laying a hand on his arm.

"Don't worry," she said, "she is all right. She knows it's all for Norton's. The man had to be bribed and we couldn't force you to do it, could we? We never force anyone, not even to make you apologize."

Then she'd produced a set of photographs. They showed a check of a thousand dollars. They also showed it in the hands of the man. And then there were a few pictures of teenage Drew sucking his hard cock.

"We took the money out of your tuition trust," she said. "Remember that the next time you go bonkers. As for the pictures, we needed them to shut him up, you understand? Our school is, well, vulnerable."

"Why Drew?" he asked.

She smiled, squeezing his arm.

"You like her, don't you?" She tried to catch his eyes. "We know."

Running through mud and melting snow he realized what she meant. There had been a message to the man, but there also was a message to him. To make him feel guilty about Drew; to make him an accomplice in some convoluted way. To make him think twice a next time.

Lucian Gaines felt dirty ever since.

Right after seeing Parker he had been summoned to visit Dr. Kurtz.

He'd tried to avoid her since the awful experience on Christmas Eve -- another moment of mental blackmail, no doubt. The suicide of her son should make him understand and accept what Norton's did to him -- even that they had noble motives. Of course his thoughts weren't as clean-cut as this, but another thin film of dirt clung to him ever since that day.

Sitting across from her he expected to be asked to strip, but she didn't. She just looked at him, and the crooked smile wasn't there. It made her seem older.

"I never thought you were the violent type, Julian," she said in a low, soft voice.

He shrugged.

"We hate violence in our students, here at Norton's," she went on. "It goes against everything we believe."

He tried to keep a straight face, remembering how this same woman had treated him with injections, and circumcised him while he was made unconscious.

Kurtz looked pointedly down on her desk, where he saw a syringe. Then she looked up again.

"I am going to help you fight that violent streak, Lucian," she said. She picked up the syringe. It was small and contained a clear pinkish liquid.

"You will visit me once a week," she went on, " and I'll give you another shot of this. It will clear your mind and help you avoid sudden flares of anger like the one that caused you to attack poor Mr. Landowski."