Lucian Ch. 04

'Poor Mr. Landowski.' Lucian looked at the syringe; then up to her eyes.

"I won't let you," he said.

It brought a smile back to her face, but it was small and tired.

"I expected that, but I'm afraid you have no say in this, Lucian."

She raised her eyes and looked at a point behind him.

He turned around and saw the impressive frame of Coach looming over him. He'd never heard her come in. The lycra-clad giantess stood with her strong arms folded under her bosom, and she slowly shook her meaty head.

"And don't bother to call your mother," Kurtz went on. "She agrees."

He turned back to the doctor. She rose to her feet, carrying the syringe. As she took his arm and rubbed the crook of his elbow, her smile was back in full force.

"You see, darling," she said. "We mothers always know best."

Reaching the school building on his run, Lucian went straight to his room. He peeled off his soaked outfit and stepped under a hot shower, shivering.

Inside the cloak of scalding water he let his mind wander, while his hands did the same on his chest and belly. The skin felt slick and creamy over the firm, well-trained muscles below. Tightening his buttocks he tried to remember how his body had felt before coming to Norton's -- weak it had been, and covered in a layer of pudgy fat.

He could feel his ribs now, and the edge of its cage around his flat, hard belly. His chest had soft patches, but the slippery nipples at their center were hard; they poked out and felt sensitive.

Closing his eyes he reached down for his genitals.

Spreading his thighs he placed the palm of his hand around the package. The flesh was as sensitive as his chest. It felt hot and it throbbed as he just barely squeezed, but it stayed soft and slippery.

Looking down his smooth legs he watched the pink polish on his toenails, shining through the splattering water.

Lucian knew what they did to him; he guessed he always had.

He knew there were no boys and girls at Norton's Academy of Excellence. There had been a time when denial made him believe that Bobs and Barbs were separate groups, boys and girls growing up side by side. Of course the boys were treated like faggots, but to be honest: hadn't they always been treated like that?

Hadn't he?

As he squeezed the soft ball of flesh, Lucian knew he should feel mad and indignant. Closing his eyes he saw Charlie pulling gracefully at the hem of his tiny skirt, throwing him a flirty gaze with his violet eyes. He remembered Harper's slim fingers drawing circlets on his bare thigh. He recalled Jo giving Kelly a butterfly kiss after glossing the boy's lips.

And of course there had been him sucking Drew's pitiful cock.

He should feel disgusted. Why didn't he? Was it the injections; the pills? Or was it just that he at last...

All he knew was that his penis got firmer from the images inside his head, and that his left nipple started spreading electrical waves from where his fingernails tweaked it.

The exposed head of his penis nudged his palm with a series of little spasms. He spread his hand and watched a stream of milky fluid pulse from the purple-pink glans, dissolving into the falling water. He shook and a moan welled up from his throat.

He knew he'd feel ashamed soon -- but not now; not yet.

***

The envelope was pale lavender; a color he knew.

His name was on its front in a bold, round handwriting he also knew well. A trace of familiar perfume rose from the paper when he held it close.

It was a letter from his mother, and he didn't have to open it.

It already was.

A knife had severed the upper side. He knew who'd done that. Ms. Parker opened all correspondence, even the obviously private letters. She'd done that with the one single letter he'd received before, and she hadn't even listened to his protests.

There was only one sheet of paper inside the envelope.

"Dearest Lucian!!" it opened. He winced at the exclamation marks and the little heart on the i in his name.

She 'hoped he was well' in the first line of the letter, the words adorned with a multitude of question marks. The purple ink must have flown from the classic gold fountain pen she used. Closing his eyes he saw her slender, lacquered fingernails around it. She held the shaft between her first and second finger, unlike most people.

"I have news that is both awful and wonderful, sweet honey!" she went on writing. "I have filed for divorce!!"

She proceeded with explaining how she fought all the time with his father over him and the way he should be brought up. And she'd realized how they 'had grown apart.' How 'insensitive' he was. She used words like 'callous' and 'cruel.'

"How can I stay married to a man who despises my son, the dearest thing I have in life???"

Lucian stared at the sentence, reading it again and again.

He thought back to his youth, seeing a procession of nannies. He remembered falling asleep from pure exhaustion, sitting forgotten in a corner of her boudoir-like bedroom while she drank and smoked and gossiped with numberless friends, pampered and botoxed like her, and dressed in silks and panther patterns.

He'd heard his parents scream and fight through the wall of his bedroom, but hardly ever was it him they discussed. "The dearest thing I have in life."

He returned to the letter.

"Sweet Lucian! I have contracted the best lawyers, so be assured that I'll fight for the both of us!! He'll pay for this, the bastard! I'll take him to the cleaners."

He didn't know that expression, but it was easy to see what she meant. She'd try to take as much of his money as she could in the divorce. She would need it, he thought, knowing how high maintenance she was.

"Never panic!!" his mother went on, giving him a first taste of exactly that.

He was rich, Drew had told him, and it was the only reason why they left him alone, never asking him to take part in the chores -- the serving, the laundry, helping in the park, the kitchen... A flash of Drew sucking the cock flared through his mind.

Never panic.

He stuffed the letter back into the envelope, grabbed a robe and went looking for Parker.

Waiting to be received in her office, Lucian sat down reading the letter again. A divorce over him? He shook his head with disbelief.

Through the years all his mother had done -- when she talked to him at all -- was complaining about the absence of his father, often suggesting he cheated on her with anything from secretaries to just plain whores. That was what she called them, sluts and whores. And most of the quarrels he heard at night were about them.

She'd painted her father as a monster ever since Lucian was very small; and the way his father treated him didn't much to correct that picture.

Of course he knew why his mother never left. It was a matter of money. She spent all her days and nights on spending it -- clothes, nannies, expensive furniture, art, entertaining friends, dining out, visiting spas, holidays, cars...

He often heard his father complain about that through the wall.

"You wanted to see me, Lucian?"

Parker stood in her doorframe, wearing a gray, tight business suit, dark stockings and patent leather heels.

He went inside and sat down.

"I need my cell phone," he said, adding "please."

Parker sighed, standing behind her desk.

"No use, she won't answer," she said.

"She sent me a letter. I have to talk to her about it."

"I know. I read it. There are things I have to tell you, I guess."

A very old wariness overwhelmed him. People knowing more about him than he did was a fact that had shaped his life.

Parker sat down. Her bracelets clattered on the desktop.

"You see, sweetie, she was here," she said, raising her hand when he jumped to his feet, yelling unrelated words like "what" and "when" and why she hadn't seen him on her visit.

"Sit down. It was months ago, even before Christmas."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"She asked me not to," Parker said, shrugging her stuffed shoulders. "She was here with her lawyer to inform us about her divorce. She'd already filed."

Months ago and not a word. Lucian's eyes burned with tears.

"Of course," Parker went on, "your mother's divorce is a private thing that's not our business. What is very much our business, though, is you."

She allowed a pause.

"You are in our custody, so to speak, Lucian."

Looking up she waited until his eyes met hers.

"The lawyer assured me that your tuition would be at the very top of every negotiation the divorce process might encompass."

Parker studied his face; then she leaned forward.

"But, just like you should, sweetie, I hate to gamble," she said.

It wasn't hard to understand what she meant.

"You think she will stop paying?" he asked.

She blinked as she sat straight again.

"Of course not," she went on after a short pause. "But whatever happens, we won't let you down."

***

The spotlights were hot; they soaked his bare skin.

Floating in a huge, steaming bath of light all he could see through the glare of the lamps were disembodied shadows.

Ghosts were moving around, sending kaleidoscopic beams in every direction. It gave him an eerie sense of detachment, of privacy even, although he was the literal center of the spotlights.

There was music -- very loud music.

It filled every molecule around him with a pulsing beat. A voice gave instructions from beyond the wall of light -- 'push your hip out, baby,' 'lower the shoulder strap,' 'look over here... pout your lips, toss your hair and look angry, honey... wow yes... look wild.'

Looking wild was easy.

So was looking angry or seductive. It felt strangely right to be painted and perfumed like this, dressed and pampered. It turned him into someone else -- something else, even -- wearing a mask of make up to hide behind.

He didn't have to care, did he? It was all make-believe.

Was there anybody else who cared? Of course not -- it was all theatre, a game, a conspiracy. He wasn't supposed to be himself, was he? He was meant to be an actor, a puppet sending his helpless body out into a world of illusions -- while he himself stayed behind, safely hidden.

Winter went and early spring had come to Norton's Academy of Excellence.

Following the laws of peer pressure and sheer repetition Lucian gradually lost most of his gut-wrenching reflexes while attending Beauty and Grace classes or plying his legs into intricate ballet positions.

There were the pills of course, and the injections that might slowly alter him, but he didn't feel or see any obvious physical changes -- either with him or with the other Bobs. He was fitter than ever. He'd grown an inch, Kurtz told him, and he loved the easy, supple way his muscles responded.

But, although he hardly realized it, the most important change was the way he regarded the world, the people around him, himself -- and especially his body.

He'd hated it ever since his puberty started: how thin he was, how pale and childish with his white curly hair and soft-skinned face. His small frame and small penis, his voice that never broke, his wide blue eyes, even his unblemished skin -- it all seemed to conspire against him.

And if he didn't see it himself, he had a father and school bullies to remind him.

If you hate your body, you stop looking in mirrors, and most of all: you avoid touching it.

At the Academy mirrors were impossible to avoid, so his reflections were everywhere, every hour of the day -- in his room while dressing, at Beauty class to frame the close ups of his face, at ballet to reflect his stances, and at Grace classes to register his movements.

There also was a strict regimen that encouraged touching.

Two times a day he was obliged to rub lotion on each square inch of his skin, forcing him to get acquainted with every niche and crack and curve of his body, even the most intimate -- his pulsing little penis, his sphincter and his sensitive nipples.

All his clothes were soft and slippery, loose enough to move and caress him, tight enough to squeeze his thighs and chest and crotch -- and to show him off.

Pavlovian association soon did its work, reversing causes and effects, which doubled the efficiency of the program. Smelling the lotion became enough to tumble a switch in his mind, just like the sweet fragrances in Beauty class did, and the heady mixture of girly scents and sweat in Ballet class and Gym.

Time went on in its usual eroding, massaging way.

Returning after another evening run, sweaty and soaked from the drizzling rain, Lucian found a folder on his desk.

Its clear plastic contained a set of contact sheets from the photo shoot he'd had three days ago. Pulling out the upper one, memories of the limbo-like experience overwhelmed him.

Why had he let them?

He didn't remember. He'd refused at first, hadn't he? And then they lied to him, of course. Parker told him it was just for registration, like for a passport.

Mandatory, really.

When he entered the studio, he stepped into a world that had bewitched him ever since he was a child, sitting wide-eyed amidst his mother's female friends, hearing their stories, watching the pictures they shared.

It also was the world of the school play, where he'd become Romeo. It felt like the moment, not long ago, when Mamselle had painted his face and turned him into this decadent, world-wise woman.

And like the Christmas Eve charade.

Now here in this studio he saw the lights and the glamour of those same worlds, feeling the same thrill and attention. It had been like stepping into a fragrant cloud, surrounded by warmth and sweetness.

The make up girls showered him with compliments, as did the photographer and his assistant. After shooting a series of straight portraits, they called him a natural. They said the camera loved him and they compared him to the models he'd always admired, the famous cover girls from his mother's reading table.

He didn't believe a word they said, of course.

But he let them go on -- wallowing in an attention he'd never felt. He allowed a girl to strip him and dress him in a satin thong, thigh high stockings and a top that was nothing but loose, gauzy drapery.

He should have stopped them then, but somehow he got lost in a maelstrom of activities, being nudged and pampered until he found himself at the steaming center of spotlights and attention. The pounding music thrilled him, and he was whisked away on a stream of compliments.

Everything after that was a blur.

But now here were the pictures, clear and sharp.

The first ones showed an angel -- an otherworldly, wraith-like stranger with smoky eyes that teased and mocked whomever dared to look back. There was no shyness in those eyes, no holding back in the half-naked stances. The creature wore sheer lingerie, mostly white lace and satin that seemed to be embroidered on its flesh. In other shots flimsy items hung open to show off a pink nipple or suggest shadowy shapes in the creature's crotch.

'It,' he thought. It was an it; not a 'me' or a 'she' or even a 'him.'

It.

He ran through the rest of the contacts, not able to recall that he'd acted out what they showed. The entire memory of the photo shoot was shrouded in mist, creating a distance he'd already felt while posing.

It was the same distance he conjured up at Christmas or in Beauty or Grace Class -- or on Kurtz's damn examination table. Distance had become his answer to anything happening to him -- the rape, the school's response when he reported it, his mother, his running off, and the men in the truck; his whole damn life.

Distance was his defense.

Whatever happened didn't happen to him, did it? Life was a stage -- who said that? Whoever it was, he must have felt like him.

Lucian sighed, throwing the contact sheets on the bed.

Turning around he stared into the big vanity mirror over his desk. His curls stuck to his brow with sweat and rain, his face was pink from cold air and exertion. If this was the true Lucian he saw, who then was the ghost in those pictures? Whose face was it he saw in Mamselle's mirrors? Whose body bent so graciously under Ms. Fontaine's critical eyes?

"Hi Lucian."

Why was she standing there? Why had she followed him in, and why did it irritate him that she held the pictures and studied them the way she did?

Why was Drew here at all, after all these weeks? After what happened at Parker's office?

He heard her gasp as she watched the pictures.

"That's not me," he said. "Give."

The remark made her blink. She looked again.

"But," she muttered, looking up and down as if to compare. "Of course it is you. Who else..."

"It's not me," he interrupted her, taking the sheets from her hands. He pushed them back into the folder and threw them into the metal dustbin by his desk.

Drew looked at the bin and back to him. Her big gray eyes were moist, as was her hair and face -- her top had dark stains. She must have been running too, following him. Reaching out she touched his shoulder.

His first urge was to jerk it away from her. But he didn't.

"It's all right," she said. "That is you, and you are glorious, Lucian; you should be proud."

"Proud," he repeated, tasting the word. Then he shook his head.

"You don't get it," he said. "How can I be proud? It's not me. I'm not that."

Looking down she saw one forgotten sheet that must have fallen from the bed. It showed a series of shots with Lucian completely naked, his body pale under a cloud of white-blond curls. He looked straight into the camera, holding a small bouquet of red roses in front of his crotch, right at the juncture of his long white legs.

She picked up the sheet, but he snatched it from her hand and tore it up -- once, twice.

"Oh, Lucian," she murmured, touching her mouth in shock. "What's wrong with you?"

As if bitten by her words, his eyes flew towards hers.

"With me?" he cried out.

She took a step back, raising her hands against the violence.

He slumped down on the bed.

"Go away," he said. "Go suck some cock. Make fun of someone else."

Drew didn't leave. Instead she sat down next to him. This time he did turn away from her touch.

"All Barbs will be jealous when they see those in the hall," she said. "God, they'll be green with envy."

The hall?

Lucian turned towards her. The big hall had this ongoing exposition of three or four pictures -- big shiny blowups, mostly fashion photo's, magazine covers and portraits; sometimes nudes. He'd never consciously compared the pictures to any of the students.

"Come," she said. "Let's go look. Maybe you're there already."

Her hand was on his shoulder again.

"You don't get it, do you?" he asked.

Her eyes danced with confusion.

"Get what, honey?" she asked.

He shook his head, irritated.

"Don't call me honey," he said.

Then he rose from the bed, letting her hand slide off his shoulder onto the blanket. He looked down on her, seeing tears on her face. Sinking to his haunches, he took her hands in his.

"Drew," he said. "Maybe being their puppet is all right with you. Maybe you even like it. The way you agreed to suck that guy I hit. I can't do that. And I can't be this, this thing in these pictures. It scares me. It's a doll, a brainwashed creature -- not me. Maybe they drugged me to get me to act like that, wear that, and look like that. It's not me, understand? I hate it!"

Her hands inside his trembled. Her eyes turned dark.

"You wait, Lucian," she said with a veiled voice. "You wait until the money stops."