Some information on the characters from the new thing.
Arseniy has finished high school with honours firmly believing that his future is set. But once he gets an invitation to a magical academy, his plans are in disarray, although he still hopes to be as excellent at magic as he was at Maths. However, getting cursed and achieving the worst result during the evaluation procedure eradicates that hope, and the only reason he gets to stay at the academy is the staff’s morbid curiosity. Defeated and full of hopelessness, Arseniy almost drowns himself in the lake but is saved by his new friends who tell him that he has worth regardless of his magic abilities. As love and friendship blossom, dark forces thought to be long buried suddenly reappear and want to destroy everything Arseniy holds dear.
Lara lost everything when she decided to live true to herself. Her parents almost confined her to a mental institution only to be stopped by her grandmother who might not have understood everything about her but loved her regardless. Still, they got the last laugh when Lara was forced to serve in the army for one year, emerging as a shell of her former shell after the discharge. The end of the service allowed her to finally start her transition, and everything had been going smoothly until magic appeared in her life. Now Lara plans to become the most powerful mage in the country or even the world, and if at first she wanted to do it for herself, potentially becoming a threat to everyone else, her new acquaintances might change her outlook and make Lara consider using her powers for the good.
Nikita is just an ordinary guy. Well, except he’s very tall, and his permanent nickname is Uncle Styopa. Well, except he’s been in love with his best friend for ages and watched him hook up with everyone. Everyone but him. Eventually Nikita decided to move on from his crush and started talking to someone, but the Moirai had other plans for him. Initially distraught, Nikita finds himself drawn to Arseniy, whose courage he wished he had. As Arseniy’s magic is too weak to protect himself, let alone others, it is up to Nikita to become his shield and finally leave the shadow of his friend. Unfortunately, becoming something you are not and are not meant to be is not a walk in the park…
‘Who are we going to invite to our wedding?’ Kyle asked me randomly as we were chilling out on my bed.
‘Our wedding?’ I giggled. ‘Kyle, we aren’t even dating anymore.’
Kyle looked affronted, as if my definition of the marriage had been invalid.
‘We’re already closer than anything. But if we don’t marry, we won’t be able to preserve this connection. If you happen to get hospitalized, I want to be there, but they won’t admit me as just a friend. Your husband, on the other hand….’
‘Why would I get hospitalized?’ I feigned outrage. ‘It’s you who’s under the constant threat of your brains being bashed out by a ball.’
‘Fine, let’s pretend it’s me, though my head is sturdy enough to withstand all sorts of balls,’ he chuckled. ‘You would want to see me, right?’
I chewed on my lower lip.
‘I suppose yes, I would.’
‘You suppose?’ Kyle said threateningly and tickled my armpits. I wanted to escape his devilish antics, but his strong arms enveloped me, and all I could do is to sulk.
‘What I mean is that I don’t want to see you in such situations whatsoever, but if it happens, then yes, I want to be next to you. And while some nurses will probably allow me to see you if I lie about being your… boyfriend or something, the scheme could always fail. Still, marriage, Kyle? Well, a sham one could work, but what if we both find people we want to be in a real one with?’
‘Nah, I’m good,’ Kyle shook his head. ‘I’ve always thought you’d be my end game, Fili.’
I wanted to see his face as he had been saying that, but his grip on was strong, his breath relentless.
‘Your end game? What does that mean?’ I asked Kyle. I might have had some idea of what it could mean, a pretty good idea. However, with him, nothing was certain until that sensual mouth of his said it directly.
‘You know… getting a nice house, adopting a couple of kids, watching them grow… and then dying together on the same day,’ embarrassment engulfed Kyle’s fairy-tale-like words.
‘Too cheesy for a person who supposedly doesn’t believe in romance,’ I tried to pinch his nose behind me, although my aim was off, and I only managed to touch his chin where a thick line of hair was blossoming. I liked my boys clean-shaven, but Kyle was no longer my boy, and he was free to do anything with his face. Not that anything would ever blemish it.
‘Um,’ I was not sure if Kyle was contemplating his answers or taken aback by my attack.
‘Um,’ he vocalized again. ‘It’s not really… romantic or anything. It’s more… familial, I don’t know. I want to be your family, Fili. Well, you’re already one, but I as I’ve said, we’ll have to make it legal somehow.’
‘You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?’ I marvelled at his determination. ‘It’s not some spontaneous thing you’re going to forget tomorrow.’
‘Nope,’ he moved his head to meet mine, and I could feel his stubble brushing against me. ‘I’m totally serious, and… I want you to consider it carefully, too.’
‘Kyle…,’ I could only sit there in his arms, thinking that I would not mind dying in them that very instant. He was still holding me as if he had been afraid to let me go and see me leave him. However, Kyle’s hold on me had a calming effect, and even if I wanted to leave, it was only to trick him and return shortly.
‘I don’t inspire much confidence, do I?’ Kyle said coarsely, his voice slightly trembling.
‘I must admit, Kyle, that your image of our future seems contradictory… to your needs. It’s not that they’re wrong. But if we’re doing that, I need your full devotion to the cause. The last thing I need is having to explain to my children why one of their daddies didn’t come home last night and then showed up at the door reeking of another man.’
‘But I always clean…,’ Kyle protested.
‘I know, I know,’ I gently put a finger to his mouth. ‘But hear me out, Kyle. Even provided that you’re all clean and discreet, do you really believe that our children won’t notice anything? I don’t care what you’re and will be doing, but I don’t want to raise children in such an environment. Call me an old-fashioned, monogamous prick, whatever. And who said that I want children? I’ve never mentioned anything of the sort.’
Kyle chuckled, prompting me to pinch his lips for real. He decided to lick them in retaliation, and I retreated.
‘If you didn’t want them, you wouldn’t be so passionate about it,’ he smirked, and I could not deny the truth. ‘And you’d make a great parent. I can’t explain why – it’s just my intuition.’
‘Okay.’
‘And as for the rest… I get it, Fleet. Yes, what you’ve described might happen, and I’d hate myself for that. But I’m going to become better. I’m going to ‘live my life’ now, experience things, get wild… However, in several years, maybe after we graduate college, I’ll be ready for this, for the family. The question is… will you wait for me?’
Kyle’s question struck my heart, and I almost winced with phantom pain. Kyle was resolved to commit to ‘the family’, to the idea of us. But I… What did I want?
‘I don’t know, Kyle’, I said honestly, feeling him tense. ‘I can’t make important promises like that. You say what you feel towards me is familial, and there’s some truth to it. But I want to experience some romantic love, too, and I can’t predict where it will take me. Maybe that person will be the one I’ll marry. Maybe romantic love is nothing compared to yours. I need to find it out for myself, Kyle. It might take months, it might take years, it might take several people… Will YOU wait for me?’
Kyle abruptly released me, and I thought that it was the end of everything, the consequences of my earnestness. But then he grabbed my body again and rotated me so that I could face him, our noses touching. He looked as if he had been on the verge of tears, though his eyes were dry and full of something akin to desperation and pure sorrow.
‘I’m sorry, Fili, I…,’ his breath was shallow. ‘It’s selfish of me, I know. But trust me – I don’t love anyone more than you, and I’m sure that it’ll never change. I will probably survive if you tie yourself to another guy, though I can’t imagine my life without you. I’ll feel… completely lost.’
Kyle had never sounded so timid, and I brushed my knuckles against his cheek. He was transfixing me with his brown eyes, begging for me to paint the future for him. I was no God almighty, but maybe in Kyle’s eyes, I was just that.
‘Such strong words for someone who’s only 16, Kyle,’ I shook my head. ‘Although you’re right about one thing – I also cannot imagine my life without you. That ephemeral guy who’ll apparently eclipse everything in my life will have to share. I… cannot afford to lose this either.’
I patted the bed on which we had done many things: laughing, crying, hugging, building caves made of books and blankets, playing board games, putting make-up on each other, writing sloppy poetry, practising French, cuddling during winter and keeping distance in the heat of the summer, discussing crushes, spilling milkshakes on the blanket, gossiping, kissing romantically and kissing platonically… That bed and its predecessors had seen us do everything except for THAT thing, and I regretted nothing. I wanted us to continue to do all those things, and if I ever should do THAT thing, it would have to be somewhere else. Kyle and I’s precious memories were not to be desecrated.
‘So?’ Kyle looked at me expectantly. ‘And for the record, I may be just 16, but we’ve been together for 11 years. No one will be able to outshine that.’
I… was struggling not to tell Kyle that deep inside, I wanted him to be my end game, too. Those 11 years had belonged to me as well. Those 11 years had been defined by him. The best my potential partner could hope for was to supplement Kyle. I was not a fool – nobody would agree to that position, to play second fiddle to Kyle. Unless that person managed to make me fall in love with him so hard I would forget Kyle. But did such love even exist? Was there anything bigger, more significant, more overwhelming and more unconditional than Kyle’s love? Still, I could not confide that to Kyle, even though he could read me like a pharmacist deciphering a doctor’s prescription anyway. We needed time. Our relationship had not worked out once, and I did not want to see a repeat of that.
‘Let’s return to this conversation around the time of our college graduation,’ I said, my voice wooden. ‘Time will sort everything out, and I’ll be experienced enough to sift through feelings and see for myself what’s genuine and what’s not.’
Judging by Kyle’s expression, he had been expecting to hear something else, although after a moment or two he nodded.
‘I agree. I don’t want to rush you or anything. Just know that I love you and that after all is said and done, it’s you who I want to be with.’
Kyle kissed my cheek, and a sole tear trickled down the area he had marked.
Three years ago I wrote a one-shot, which is still available here:
https://danceonthebrink.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/the-flowers-you-gave-me-always-wilted/
It was supposed to be a horror story inspired by Junji Ito’s brand of horror set in a world where your deceased lovers rise as zombies and try to kill you because it’s lonely in death. A killer concept, pardon my pun, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.
I could give thousands of excuses to my readers, and one of them could even be valid (some of the story is better suited for the visual novel presentation), though the truth is that back then I didn’t think far, and my experience with English-language literature was still limited. Some might say that my writing has deteriorated despite my period of excessive reading, which is fair. But reading more isn’t guaranteed to make your writing better – it only shows you what themes have been explored, how they have been explored, and what you can ultimately contribute to the rising pile of queer literature. “The Flowers” had a trans main character and a gay deuteragonist, which is a good combo, but there was one flaw – at the heart of the story was a straight romance. I could’ve made it compelling, I could’ve criticized heteronormativity, and I could’ve made queerness more prominent, but I didn’t, and the train has left.
Why did I decide to remake the story years later? First of all, I still love the premise, and the new prologue attempts tp retain the same atmosphere. I also needed a horror story to add to my portfolio. And by needed and I mean NEEDED. Romance is all and well, but it’s not my forte. There’s no romance in my life, but there’s plenty of horror. And with everything turning into shit with each passing second, I need the outlet. As for why the character was changed into an agender person, it’s a long story, and I might devote a separate post to it. All my readers have to know for now is that I’m exploring the boundaries of my identity, and I believe that as an AMAB person who does have they in the pronouns, I’m allowed to do this.
Those who’ve read the characters’ bios on my tumblr (https://distraughtmary.tumblr.com) might’ve noticed that Fleety is also asexual. This was actually a more difficult point to write about than their agender identity. Here I follow the definition of asexuality as the lack of interest in sex but the presence of attraction to people. Some asexual people may disagree with this definition, but from what I could find it’s a valid thing. My goal was to focus on the queerplatonic relationship between Fleety and Kyle and show that it doesn’t have to turn into something romantic or sexual, although the nature of the story doesn’t exclude anything.
Now, let’s focus on my inspirations for ‘Your Death’. The obvious ones are the When They Cry series and American Horror Story, although me namedropping them doesn’t mean that it will literally have question/answer arcs and so on. ‘Your Death’ is basically an anthology focused on the same characters in different situations. For now I’m planning 5 ‘seasons’: The Beginning, The Alien, The Devil, The Void, The Truth, with potentially more to come. There’s also the prologue that kickstarts the story, and The Beginning tries to explain what led to the events in the prologue while being a horror story in its own right. The rest of the seasons will take place after The Beginning, forming a sort of branching paths. The main similarity with When They Cry is that with each season the readers will know more about the characters, see how they would act in extreme situations, and The Truth might answer some questions regarding their behaviour. The AHS similarity comes from the themes, and the names of the seasons are pretty telling. Speaking of Junji Ito inspirations, they won’t be completely dropped, and The Void will be rather Itoesque.
I’ve written the prologue and the first part of The Beginning. The next update will include all of The Beginning, and then we can move on to The Alien. Don’t expect much blood or horror. For now I just want the readers to get to know the characters before they face the worst days of their lives.
The first part can be downloaded here:
https://danceonthebrink.wordpress.com/2023/06/18/your-death-was-so-pathetic-i-had-to-rewrite-it-introduction/
Birth Name: Peter Zolotov
Nicknames: unknown
Age: 21
Gender: man
Pronouns: he/him (apparently)
Sexuality: unlabelled
Education: senior at a local college (Major - Engineering, minor - Pedagogy)
Hobbies: reading comics, fishing
Peter is dead. All he wanted was to feel intimate with Fleety after about 2 months of dating. His murderer is Kyle Compton. In any court he would be a victim, but is everything really that clear-cut? Was he behind the mysterious alpha bet between him and Kyle? Why did he choose Fleety out of everyone? And why is he suddenly alive, remembering what happened to him, but the world is in the middle of an alien invasion?
Birth Name: Kyle Compton
Nicknames: Kylie, KL (only Fleety can use them)
Age: 20
Gender: man
Pronouns: he/him (she/her when in drag)
Sexuality: gay
Education: junior at a local college (major - business, minor - French literature)
Hobbies: French poetry, making clothes, drag
Kyle is the story's deuteragonist and Fleety's best friend of sixteen years. He's the captain of the college football team, although only Fleety is privy to his real feelings about the sport. Kyle may play the role of a dumb jock, but he's actually brooding, has an extensive vocabulary and does drag performances at one of the local gay clubs. Kyle enjoys casual sex and doesn't believe in relationships, but there is one person for who is willing to try... Unfortunately, Fleety is more than satisfied with their friendship. Kyle is the one who killed Peter as he was forcing himself on Fleety, and that might not be his first for their sake...
Birth Name: Phillippe Moitessier
Nicknames: Fleety, Fili, FL
Age: 20
Gender: agender
Pronouns: they/them (reluctantly allows he/him from college teachers and groupmates)
Sexuality: asexual (not repulsed by sex, is able to have sex but not interested in the process, can masturbate, homoromantic - considers the label inclusive of AMAB people attracted to men)
Education: junior at a local college (major - law, minor - music theory)
Hobbies: music (darkwave, drone, shoegaze), video games, painting
Fleety is the main character and the narrator of the story. It's been two years since the apparent suicide of their first boyfriend, Christopher, and their restless romantic spirit leads them to Peter, the most popular guy on the campus. The story starts with Peter's death at the hands of Fleety's best friend, Kyle, and one has to find out what happened before the tragic event. However, behind Fleety's innocent visage hides a monster that might want to replay Peter's death again and again...
‘Let me see him,’ Adrian demanded from his father for the fifth time.
They were in Francis Railen’s office, a high-ceilinged room with a full view of the city. Or so one might think because the office was actually underground, but the elevator, not unlike the fancy one Adrian had used to reach the staircase leading to the roof, had a confusing movement for a reason. Many people were hungry for Railen’s blood, and assassination attempts had been made on him, sometimes by people inside the company, so more effective measured had been implemented to counter them. While it pained Adrian that he could lose his father any moment (though Francis was more than confident that his creation would put him back on track), he perfectly understood why the population craved for his dead body. Francis Railen might be a good father, but a good person he was not, and the dichotomy was killing Adrian. And in the ongoing situation he doubted even the good father part.
Francis did not say anything and kept himself busy at his table with multiple hologram laptops and a long screen hovering above it. However, Adrian knew that his father was only pretending to be working, and the trick was not going to land. Francis had a brain-implanted chip via which he could send important instructions and receive feedback. It was the safest route that could not be intercepted by even the most seasoned hackers. Adrian had such a chip as well, but he never used it, although he suspected that it was to blame for his father’s quick detection abilities. He wanted to sympathize with his father’s protectiveness, but he also wanted a bit of freedom, too.
‘I know you aren’t working. Your son is not an idiot,’ Adrian taunted his father.
Francis inhaled deeply and stood. He was a handsome man: well-built, a fair quiff on his head with no signs of balding owning to permanent hair implants, a young-looking face that would make one unfamiliar with the Railen family mistake him for Adrian’s older brother. Unfortunately, everyone in the state was aware of who he was, and Adrian had never experienced a cute moment of confusion. There had never been any cute moments, considering who they were.
‘Adrian,’ Francis said while approaching his son. ‘If you’re so perceptive about your poor father, then you should also know that your father needs to think before saying anything in such situations. But first…,’ Francis’s face hardened. ‘Tell me why you still think that my support of you is not genuine.’
The statement was like a slap to Adrian’s face, and he flared up. It was true that there were moments when Adrian thought that his father’s positivity regarding his sexuality was manufactured, and his dismissal of Scott did not assuage Adrian’s suspicions. Neither had the ruin of Adrian’s previous romances. Still, Adrian remained silent.
‘I don’t know what to do or say to assure you that I am fully on your side,’ Francis continued. ‘You know that I’ve been involved with a guy. You know I donate to charities, support housing opportunities for malakians. Two of your bodyguard are married, and while the common sense says that they should be separated in the work setting, I let them be because of how close you all are. What more do you need, Adri?’
‘You were involved with a guy during the time you yourself refer to as a “phase I wouldn’t want to return to”. You must understand what that sounds like to me,’ Adrian was more than ready for the conversation. ‘Like you expect me to grow out of it. As for your other ventures, good, but let’s not act like the company doesn’t hurt my people even more than it helps them, and who knows, maybe you’re doing all that specifically to compensate for your shortcomings.’
Francis winced and put a hand under his ear, pensive. Then he looked at his son with some kind of clarity mixed with pity.
‘Okay, I can see that you’ve been building all that frustration up and haven’t been able to release it. Alright, let’s have this conversation,’ Francis started pacing around the room. ‘So… that guy. When I say that I don’t want to return to that time, it doesn’t mean that I regret hooking up with him. It’s just that I was hooking up with everyone, and it wasn’t something I’m proud of. My father, your grandfather, was legitimately ashamed of me. And speaking of him, he was the reason it hadn’t worked out. I was fond of that guy, you know. But my father was conservative as hell, which almost ruined the company, and went against the very foundation of this country. While I miss him, I’m glad that you never got to meet him.’
‘Some say you killed him,’ Adrian said flatly.
‘This is preposterous,’ Francis shook his head.
‘He had more than enough resources to live well into his 100s yet he just dropped dead in his sixties. And I have this feeling that you didn’t kill just to take over the company sooner. I think you killed him for me, and I don’t know to feel about it,’ Adrian confessed uncomfortably.
‘Adrian, I didn’t kill my father,’ Francis’s voice was pure metal. ‘Anyway, no, I don’t believe in growing out of your attractions, but I’m not sure if you’d consider me one of you, malakians, but I’ve been there. I know you find it hard to accept that I’m so open-minded while being filthy rich, but it happens. Unlike other countries, where they genetically engineer perfect corporate heirs, almost like clones, with all the desired features, we conceived you naturally, and we were prepared for anything. Yes, it cost me a lot in the end, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re the best child I could ask for.’
Adrian teared up slightly and wiped out a small tear forming in the corner of his eye.
‘And we have a solution for your situation, too. We can combine your and your partner’s… husband’s semen with a synthetic egg cell, producing a perfectly healthy child. There is absolutely no problem,’ Francis went into a professional mode.
‘The problem is that you don’t want Scott’s semen in the equation,’ Adrian pointed out crudely.
‘He cannot produce any in his… condition,’ Francis deftly dodged the issue.
‘I’ve noticed,’ Adrian deadpanned. ‘But isn’t the point that he’ll be able to do it again after the recovery process?’
‘Yes,’ Francis admitted reticently. ‘It’s the plan, and it’ll take a year for him to stop shooting blanks. Maybe more.’
‘I’m patient,’ Adrian smiled despite himself. ‘Once he fully recovers and re-debuts in the society, I’ll make a marriage proposal to him. I don’t care if your stocks plummet, although we both know they won’t. If anything, it will cause them to skyrocket. Imagine – the first fully functional revived marrying his benefactor’s son. The fact that you fail to see the immediate benefits of this really shows how biased you are.’
If Francis wanted to flinch at that, he managed not to show it and kept his composure. However, the look he gave Adrian was not his favourite. On the contrary.
‘Adrian… As your father, I have the right to be concerned about your life and who you might tie yourself to. I can see the appeal of Scott, but I don’t see how you two will work as a couple in a long term.’
‘You just want to marry me off for political or business reasons, even though all the bachelors my age are unavailable,’ Adrian smirked and raised himself from the most comfortable sofa in the history of humanity. ‘Anyway, let me see Scott, and we can pretend that this embarrassing conversation didn’t happen.’
‘I don’t want to pimp you out if that’s what you’re implying,’ Francis dusted invisible specks off his jacket. ‘I just want you to find someone worthy. And, for your information, the Governor’s son’s come out as… something. He says he’s open to the possibility of dating boys and non-binary people. And his family happens to have a dinner with me later tonight.’
Adrian openly laughed at his father contradicting himself in the same reply, but he was amused at the prospect of Martin being anything but straight. The boy had been a womanizer since his balls had dropped.
‘Very smooth here, Dad. And conveniently ignoring that I do have a worthy boyfriend. Sorry, but I’m not about to be Martin’s gay guru or whatever,’ Adrian made a face.
‘Adri,’ his father said pleadingly. ‘The boy’s been having a hard time. He had a fiancée, and he had to break off the engagement. Many are understandably outraged by that. It’s not about him being a… malakian, but he did have a certain image and important obligations, and now everyone needs time to adjust. Mr. Governor thought that you could help him. You’re still close with his sister, right?’
‘Yes, Beatrice is still my best friend,’ Adrian said coldly, partially because his father was so obsessed with his love life that he tended to forget his friends and partially because Beatrice had not broken the news to him herself.
‘She’ll be there, too. I hope you three will have fun,’ Francis said cheerily without suspecting anything.
‘I’m about to burst from joy,’ Adrian rolled his eyes.
‘As for Scott… He will be released from the examination room tomorrow. So even if you decide not to attend the dinner, it won’t bring his arrival closer,’ Francis acted as if he could read Adrian’s thoughts. Adrian swore very quietly.
‘Care to share why he was taken there so swiftly even though Sal said that nothing was wrong him?’
‘Doctor Salidon did find something that could be a good or a bad thing, but he didn’t want to worry you two. I assure you – it wasn’t your punishment for having sex,’ Francis gave Adrian a smile he did not return.
‘It sure felt like one,’ Adrian hissed through his teeth.
‘And one more thing before I let you go,’ Francis approached his son and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘With two men, it’s obvious that someone has to take… the receiving role.’ Adrian’s face immediately acquired the colour of a beetroot. ‘It’s perfectly fine. I wasn’t disappointed about that. Just about your general lack of discretion.’
Francis winked at Adrian for a good measure, but all Adrian could do was to push his father’s hand off him and dart to the elevator while shouting ‘I hate you’.
***
In the safety of his bedroom, Adrian was lying on his bed covered with baby blue sheets and blanket. He was in a short black crop top that did a poor job of concealing his stomach and pink briefs that highlighted his thighs. While he generally preferred country-coded clothes, sometimes he wanted to feel sexy and free. Adrian was considering attending the dinner in just that. The Governor’s family was like his second one, and no one had ever criticized his outrageous fashion choices. But it seemed to be a formal affair requiring smart clothes, and Adrian cringed at the thought that one day he would inherit the Railen Corporation and be forced to wear the most boring suits for the rest of his life. His father had better create a clone of himself and spare Adrian such a fate.
While lamenting his lot, Adrian instinctively dialled Beatrice on a hologram console. A second later her beauty-masked face appeared on the wide screen.
‘Ri?’ she asked while squinting her eyes.
‘Bice, your brother is WHAT?’ Adrian cut straight to the point.
‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘Don’t even ask. I learned about that along with everyone else. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Things have been… busy.’
‘He didn’t tell even you? Is he for real?’ Adrian could not believe his ears.
‘I’m livid. He knows my circle, he knows that I’d be totally fine with that, he knows that I’d support him, and yet… I don’t get it,’ Beatrice made a sobbing sound.
‘They say that it’s different when it’s your family member,’ Adrian sat on the bed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘But sometimes it’s the opposite, and your family is so supportive it makes you want to die.’
‘Did you father suggest hiring waiters in thongs and frontless uniforms for the dinner?’ Beatrice giggled.
‘No, but I’d rather he do that than saying bottom rights,’ Adrian’s face flushed.
‘I-,’ Beatrice was speechless for a moment and then broke into a fit of laughter. Someone knocked at the door, called her name, and then entered. It was Martin.
‘Who are you talking to, Bice?’ he asked and then looked at the hologram screen, noticing Adrian in all his unglory. ‘Oh, Adrian.’
Martin went red and hastily left the room. Beatrice recovered from one fit of laughter just to be lost in another.
‘Bice, enough,’ Adrian winced.
‘It’s just so… this is so… funny… and the way Martin ran… he must have… a crush on you,’ almost every other word was followed by a snicker.
Adrian gave Beatrice a meaningful look and adjusted his crop top that was showing a nipple, which might have been the reason for Martin’s fast retreat.
‘I still can’t wrap my head around this. He used to be such a fuckboy, but everyone gave him a pass because he was the governor’s son and wrote his behaviour off as ‘boys will be boys’. And every time I had to break up with a guy because my dad offered him money, he had a nasty habit of flaunting how happy he was with a new girl. Like, maybe it was all for the show because deep inside he was insecure, but it doesn’t make me like him more,’ Adrian mused.
‘I’m with you here, Ri,’ Beatrice reassured him and peeled the mask off her face, exposing her tanned complexion. ‘And I can see what pop’s doing. They couldn’t make a match out of us for obvious reasons, but now he has a chance with you and Martin. Railens are here to stay, but pop’s in power for as long as he has your father’s back. And I think your father’s back’s slowly turning to Katases, no offense.’
‘Dad wanted me and Ryo to be a thing for ages,’ Adrian reminisced. ‘And we were almost one, but then Carl came along, and Scott started his band, and the rest was history.’
‘How’s Scott, by the way?’ Beatrice asked while combing her purple hair. ‘Is he recovering?’
‘Yes,’ Adrian was curt. Beatrice only knew that Scott was sick, but Adrian suspected that the excuse would not hold for long, and he would have to concoct another story. Beatrice was a rare person he wanted to confide in, but his father’s conditions were clear. The story of the accident had been wiped off the face of the earth, and even Scott’s parents had been told been half-truths. He had wanted it that way. Francis’s plan was heinous – if Scott’s recovery succeeded, the story would be available online again as if it had always been there; if it did not… no damage to Railen’s reputation. But his father had promised Scott would make a full recovery, so he did not consider the other scenario.
‘It sucks that he’s bed-ridden and stuff,’ Beatrice made a sad face.
‘Yeah,’ Adrian said without much enthusiasm. Lying to Beatrice sucked. ‘Anyway, my father wants me comfort Martin or something. Is it really that bad?’
‘I’d tell you how exactly he’d want to be comforted, but I know how you feel about Scott,’ Beatrice grinned. ‘But in a nutshell, it’s a disaster. Pop’s ratings are dropping. No one wants Martin’s endorsements anymore. The situation online is a civil war. Also, they ship two of you hard. The AI sector is overflowing with pictures and stories. Saw some of them and had to bleach my eyes. It’s like watching two of my brothers going at it.’
Adrian made a throwing up gesture.
‘Though, granted, it’s not as far-fetched as me and Alice Chashina. There’s some chemistry, I must admit. Even if it’s you hating him, and him showing off his girls around you as a sublime message.’
‘It’s never happening,’ Adrian groaned. ‘I guess I’ll ask my father to do something about it, but maybe he’ll be violently happy since I’m being railed by someone who isn’t Scott in those arts.’
‘I didn’t even tell you who was railing who,’ Beatrice yelped. ‘Admit it, you’ve been searching that up.’
‘Bice,’ Adrian said with a half-smile. ‘Let’s not kid ourselves, okay?’
She finished preening herself and lied down as well, her bodice not leaving much for another’s woman imagination.
‘We’re gonna play games at your fancy room, right? You’re not going to sneak out with a boy and leave me alone and miserable?’ Beatrice asked seriously.
‘I can’t see Scott until tomorrow, and I’m not interested in fornicating with your brother, so yeah. Clarissa will be there. Maybe Lena, too. Since it’s an official dinner, the security will be tight.’
‘My second mothers!’ she exclaimed. ‘Anyway, I really want you to attend it like this,’ she pointed at Adrian’s skimpy outfit. ‘Add some mascara, maybe.’
‘Make-up’s more of Scott’s thing. And he makes it look hot,’ Adrian shook his head. ‘I’ll just end up looking like a clown. But the offer’s tempting.’
‘No one in my family will mind it, that’s for sure,’ Beatrice laughed, and Adrian joined in.
***
Scott was held in a sort of an emergency care room, where multiple scans and tests were being performed on him simultaneously. He could not move, he could not breathe, although breathing was more of a performance in his case. If he did not breathe, it would unnerve Adrian, make him uncomfortable. Perhaps Adrian knew he was being deceived, perhaps he did not care. Scott had to care about too many things not to seem like a corpse, and it was taking a toll on him. Being virtually eviscerated was not so bad.
‘Scott, do you feel anything?’ asked one of the doctors supervising him, Doctor Manny. He liked them more than Salidon, who was also present. Salidon was only attached to the ‘project’ because Scott was intimate with his main patient, and his official task was to track how the said intimacy affected both him and Adrian. So far the answer had been ‘in no way,’ yet they had found something, and he was dying to know what it was. Or he would be if he was not already dead.
‘Nada,’ Scott replied. ‘Don’t I need pills?’
‘That’s the problem, Scott,’ Doctor Manny regarded him with a mix of fear and curiosity. ‘We believe that they won’t work on you anymore.’
Scott winced. First Adrian had told him that they would not have sex anymore. Then the doctors were telling him that the pills wouldn’t work anymore. His love life was utterly obliterated.
‘Why?’ he asked weakly.
‘We’re trying to determine the cause, Scott. All you need to know is that your body keeps rejecting them, and the sensations you acquire are connected to something else. We’ve studied your… liquid. There’s no chance your body managed to absorb the pill’s content,’ Doctor Salidon summarized.
‘But that’s how… it always worked for me?’ Scott was confused. ‘I take the pills, I throw up, I start feeling things. Up until now, it wasn’t an issue.’
‘You’re right, Scott,’ Doctor Manny gave him an unapologetic smile. ‘We also thought that it was normal. But science is malleable and evidence-dependent. As you’re our first breakthrough case, we considered your reactions to the pills a product of your accelerated recovery. Other patients experience nausea, too, but it happens much later for them, and while we don’t want to jump to conclusions here, it’s evident that the subsequent vomiting indicates the end of their sensations. But in your case, the vomiting occurs prior to the return of all sensations. Yet, we wrote off your peculiarities as simply another variation of the norm. However, Mr. Railen allowed us to run some tests on another subject, who shares your predisposition to faster recovery. She had never taken pills before the tests began, and we didn’t have the relevant data. But now we do, and the preliminary conclusion is that… Scott, you’re unique. The problem is… we can’t say for sure if your unique nature will eventually benefit you or serve as a major obstacle to your recovery.’
Scott’s heart fell. Doctor Manny’s explanation was too technical, but he had the gist of it. He also had not missed the mention of another patient like him. Wherever she was, it was not the lab. Regardless, she was only loosely similar to him, as he was ‘unique’. Scott used to be proud of his faster-than-usual recovery. He had thought he was special in a good way. But maybe he had been a failure all along.
‘I still don’t get the part about the sensations,’ Scott said in an annoyed voice. ‘You’re saying that they aren’t caused by the pills. Then what causes them?’
Both doctors sighed.
‘We don’t know,’ confessed Doctor Manny. ‘We have some ideas, but the evidence is flimsy.’
‘I know I’m asking for too much, but can I get at least something here? It’s my body, after all,’ Scott turned to them, his eyes downcast.
‘Fine,’ Salidon relented. ‘So, your case is complicated for many reasons, and that’s why we’re unable to get straight answers. We’ve established that your body has unique reactions, which is one problem. Another problem is that you’re the only subject that’s intimate with a living person.’
Scott could not flush, but he absolutely would.
‘It’s not a problem in a way you might think,’ Salidon quickly reassured him. ‘Manny and I monitor both of you closely, we know that you’re safe, and so on. The real problem is that, again, we have no one to compare you to, and we don’t know whether intimacy with a living person plays a role in your overall recovery. Other patients stick… to themselves. Both parties tend to take pills, regain the sensations, do whatever they have to do, and eject them in a known way. If the pills have no effect on you, than there’s an assumption that a pre-intimacy rush you experience while taking them might be the real reason for your sensations.
‘Um…,’ words got stuck in Scott’s throat. He wanted to cover his face with his hands, but they were still strapped to the bed.
‘In other words, we can only speculate about the causes at this point,’ Doctor Manny gave Salidon a disapproving look. ‘Although doing some tests on Adrian wouldn’t hurt. But Doctor Salidon and his father seem to be against the idea.’
‘I don’t want Adrian to be a guinea pig either,’ Scott shook his head.
‘Still, you should talk to him and ask him to consider the offer,’ Doctor Manny ignored Salidon’s invisible spears thrown their way. ‘It’s for your own good, and I’m sure that Adrian will be willing to help you.’
Scott pondered over the idea and decided that he would talk to Adrian. And if it was true that the pills were useless and that it was something else (hormones?) responsible for his sensations and that something was somehow linked to Adrian, it was only a good thing. Perhaps they would not have to act like chaste maidens around each other.
‘There is also someone we want you to meet,’ Salidon said after clearing his throat. ‘And you can’t tell Adrian about it. In any way. Francis… Mr. Railen will be very upset if you do. But he agreed to the meeting because we need to be honest with you, Scott. You need to see what could await you if your recovery stalls. And you need to see why Mr. Railen has a particular interest in your recovery that isn’t related to the business side.’
As he was saying that, a woman was rolled into the room on a stretcher. She was obviously revived, with pale skin and grey hair. Scott was the only one whose hair colour had been restored. He could not guess her age as death blurred the lines for anyone who was not a child or an elderly person, but she was probably older than him. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing, which took Scott aback.
‘Scott, we’d like you to meet Mrs. Railen,’ Doctor Manny announced, and Scott looked at them, dumbfounded.
***
There were three topics that one should not discuss with Adrian in order not to trigger him. The first one was his previous boyfriends, the second one was his love for a farm boy cosplay, and the third one was his mother. Such were the rules, but for some reason Adrian had ended up discussing every single topic with Scott, which had made him feel special. The boyfriends were a touchy subject because Adrian’s father had forced them to break up with him and even paid them money. The most humiliating fact was that everyone had been aware of the ‘transactions’, but nobody had said anything or supported Adrian. Nobody could have defied Francis Railen.
‘When I was around sixteen, no one dared to approach me,’ Adrian had said, his eyes glassy. ‘And the only boy I could be seen with was Ryoichi Katase. I did like him, but I think that the whole arranged thing didn’t let us become… more, though we both could see that our parents wanted it. Oh, I also could hang out with Martin Santorelli, you know, the Governor’s son, but he’s a jerk and straight.’
Scott hated that he had felt jealous then, as both guys were dreamy and undeniably better matches for Adrian than him. Still, he had found the strength to console Adrian and wiped off his tears.
‘I’ve always dreamt of a countryside life,’ Adrian had remarked once. ‘I hate the city. All the trees and shrubs are fake, everyone keeps android pets instead of real ones, and the air… bleurgh. I used to go to Grandma’s farm every summer, and it was like being on a different planet. I haven’t been to the countryside for years, though. My father is afraid that I’ll meet some farm boy, and we’ll start rolling around in hay stacks. But maybe that’s what life should be about?’
Scott had said nothing and tried imagining ‘rolling around’ in hay with Adrian. He might have had a point. Scott had rewarded Adrian with a kiss and run his fingers against Adrian’s chequered shirt, feeling the smooth skin behind it.
‘My mom died giving birth to me,’ Adrian had confessed during a spontaneous conversation about their families. It had been uncomfortable for them both. ‘And you know what the worst thing about it was? My father had the fucking technology to revive her, and he didn’t. He had a choice, and he blew it. And he never remarried. People say that he loved my mother too much to do that, but I’m not buying it. If he really loved her, he would’ve tried. I know that I’d revive you without a second thought. Not that I want you to die in the first place.’
The conversation had taken place a week before Scott’s accident. Adrian had blamed himself for having jinxed Scott. Scott had been happy that Adrian’s words had held some weight.
All Scott knew was that Adrian was sure of his mother’s death. Adrian had shared with him how much being raised by his father (and an army of nannies) had defined him. And Scott could see how tough Adrian was behind his soft front. But he doubted that all the toughness could save him if he discovered the truth.
Eva Railen suddenly woke up and tried sitting on the stretcher. Scott noticed that there were marks all over the exposed parts of her arms, and he gulped. The revived tended to harm themselves out of despair and unwillingness to continue living, but they could not die for the second time. Only damaging the brain could do the trick, and one revived had shot himself in the face while the entire lab had been watching, including Scott. The image had hunted him.
‘You must be Scott,’ Eva looked at Scott and smiled weakly. ‘How is my baby doing?’
And her eyes were as blue as the sky. Just like Adrian’s.
Adrian’s young love would have been a tragedy, but being a son of the CEO of the Railen Corporation which specializes in ‘reviving’ people has its perquisites. He begs his father to ‘revive’ his dead boyfriend, Scott, after he met his premature demise. Following his revival, Scott struggles to live as the walking dead despite Adrian’s earnest attempts to help him return to the life they had before. Adrian’s father is another obstacle to their happiness, and Scott proves to be an easy prey for those who want to acquire the secret of Railen’s resurrection process, and Adrian will have to do his best to protect them both. But is he willing to go that far for the mere husk of love?
Chapter 1.
The view from the top of the main Railen Corporation building was breathtaking. One could see the entire central part of Dewdrop City, including its most exquisite sites: the Crystal Pond with its authentic gondolas, which meant being made of wood rather than of some metal painted to resemble wood, and the Spiked Tower, which was decorated – if such a word was even applicable to the monstrosity of the building – with metal spikes that partially shrouded the windows, and one would have to go somewhere else if they wanted to have a good look at the city. The idea behind the architecture was to motivate the office workers and minimize potential distractions, but most employees had reported feeling imprisoned and distressed, and eventually the Tower had been vacated and repurposed as a tourist attraction. Francis Railen had had his sights on the building since then despite already owning a plethora of skyscrapers in the area, although the board of directors had consistently vetoed the acquisition. There were other minor places of interest theoretically visible from the top of the building, but the flying cars that were constantly buzzing around the sky highway did a good job of obstructing the view. The one who was particularly vexed by the vehicles was a lean blond youth in overalls sitting on the edge, his legs dangling over the urban abyss. The sun was emphasizing the rye of his hair while simultaneously giving him a slow heat stroke that would surely kill him if he remained in the same position for one more hour. He was not alone – a figure in a grey hoodie was keeping him a company at some distance in a shade, uncomfortable with the proximity to the brink. Unlike the fair-haired boy, the figure was well-covered, and one had to really peer into the available amount of skin to notice its almost dead-like paleness. The shadow possessed a pair of sunglasses, a surgical mask, and gloves, so confusing it with the Death itself would not be a stretch. But the youth did not seem daunted by the figure in the slightest. He went back on his feet, demonstratively pretending that he was about to fall down, and skipped to it.
‘Scotty,’ the boy said in the most affectionate voice. ‘It’s lonely without you there.’
Whatever was behind the layers of clothes coughed and rasped:
‘You know I’m scared of the heights, Adri. And the sun would literally kill me.’
‘You promised me that we’d fight your phobias together,’ Adrian protested.
‘I made that promise before… before everything. I was scared of death once, too,’ Scott said bitterly through his mask.
An awkward silence followed their exchange, but it was as silent as the centre of the city could afford.
‘I want to kiss you,’ Adrian said, determination visible in his sapphire eyes.
‘Let’s come inside, and you can do whatever you want to me,’ Scott parried.
‘No. I want to kiss you right here, in front of all these cars and public transportation. I want them to know that I, Adrian Railen, is madly in love with you.’
‘They know we were in love. Before I… died,’ Scott’s voice was akin to a heavy smoker’s.
‘And now they think that I’ll move on and chase after some guy of a similar social standing, but everyone knows that all the guys my age are either straight or taken,’ Adrian said, vexed.
‘If you tried, any guy could be yours, straight or taken,’ Scott laughed. ‘You’re the son of the richest motherfucker in this country.’
‘But we have a problem here,’ Adrian’s face was close to Scott’s. ‘I don’t want any guy. I want you and you alone.’
And then Adrian removed Scott’s mask with a snap and kissed him. Scott’s mouth was cold and uninviting, but Adrian had got used to it. Meanwhile, Adrian’s mouth felt like home for Scott, and their tongues intertwined, with Adrian trying to send as much warmth as possible to Scott’s cold body. When they parted, Adrian was significantly flustered and unable to conceal the perkiness in his overalls. Meanwhile, Scott was like a mannequin, and that was something Adrian could never get accustomed to.
‘I’m sorry,’ Scott whispered upon seeing his lover’s agitated state. ‘You know that I need pills to simulate that.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Adrian was comically covering his lower part with his hand. ‘I know it must be hard for you too. I’m just… selfish.’
‘Come here,’ Scott said in a voice commanding and loving at the same time.
Adrian dropped his arms and took his place opposite the love of his life. Scott grabbed Adrian’s waist and pulled him as close as possible, and their lips touched again. But it was not Adrian’s mouth Scott was interested in as he moved his mouth down and tasted Adrian’s neck. Although it felt like an icicle, Adrian would never stop his boyfriend from trying to express his love. Scott’s tongue was as cold as a fish, but it was still more than capable of leaving traces of passion. They had remained in that position until the sun started to wane and the cars became more restless in the middle of a rush hour.
‘Why don’t I take my pills and you take the shower, and we continue this in my lab?’ Scott suggested after finally putting the tongue back into his own mouth.
‘Sure,’ Adrian nodded while barely moving his neck, partially paralyzed by Scott’s tongue.
They went inside, and Scott pulled back his hoodie, exposing a mane of short brown hair, and tossed the sunglasses into a pocket. His eyes were grey, previously hazel and rimmed by slit eyebrows, and they were transfixing Adrian’s lean figure.
‘Admit it – you planned this,’ he said hoarsely and no longer through his mask.
‘Planned what?’ Adrian cocked his head innocently. ‘I just wanted to spend some time with my boyfriend outside.’
‘And then you accidentally made the said boyfriend horny?’ Scott hissed, not unkindly.
‘I thought your… kind doesn’t get horny?’
‘Move your ass,’ Scott barked, and they started going down the endless flights of stairs reminiscent of the ones a famous game made two centuries ago had. But it was only the beginning of their journey back to the ‘lab’. The next stage was an elegant-looking elevator modelled after a vintage clock tower. Even its insides had a hologram that could have fooled a poor citizen who hardly saw hi-tech in their life, but Adrian had been raised among the machines, and Scott had spent enough time around Adrian not to marvel at every single technical wonder. Adrian fumbled for the button panel and manually inserted the number: 55. It was not the lab, but the hub from which one could go to most places in the building, including those where only the chosen ones were accepted to enter. During their descent Adrian struggled not to make out with Scott, but the elevator had as many cameras as spiders had eyes, and those were the visible ones. Adrian was aware of the rest, but the point was that there no ‘blind spot’ in the cabin, and while everyone and their grandparents knew about him and Scott, Adrian was apprehensive of his father. He could not forget the reluctance in his father’s eyes when he had begged to bring Adrian to life. He could not forget his father’s stiff smile during the moment of reunion. And he could never forget the overheard conversation between his father and Scott.
‘My son needs a proper partner and not… you,’ the scorn was palpable in Francis Railen’s voice. ‘I can live without a blood heir and a grandchild, but I can’t live with Adrian wasting his time on a middle-class woodpecker with average grades who would fail his exams... before and who is unable to enter the society now.’
‘Aren’t you planning for me to become the first revived to re-enter the society?’ there was disbelief in Scott’s tone, as if he had been tricked and only then realized that.
‘Yes, in a year or two. The regeneration process is slow, and the pills can have unpredictable side-effects, considering the manner of your… demise. Everyone thought you were a goner with those injuries, but you are the most resilient subject now, and I appreciate your contribution to our cause, Scott. I anticipate your grand return as much as you do. But without Adrian,’ Railen stressed the last two words.
‘He loves me, too. You saw what my death did to him. You saw how he begged you on his knees in front of my mangled body. No, my brain did not miraculously register all that – you know how it works better than me. But Adrian told me everything, and I’m inclined to believe him. And I also believe that behind all that tough front you’re a good father who wouldn’t let his son go through hell again,’ Adrian could not help admiring his boyfriend’s eloquence. Scott might not have been book smart, but he always knew the right words to say.
‘Look, Scott. I see what you are trying to do here, and I am almost convinced, but I know my son. He got over his previous heartbreaks, and he’ll get over you, probably even faster. Adrian, you see, inherited my… sexual appetite, and you seem to be really struggling on that front these days. If you truly love him, then you should know what’s best for him.’
There was more to their conversation, but that was the breaking point when Adrian realized that his father knew nothing about him. All his ‘heartbreaks’ had been staged by his father, his ‘sexual appetite’ was normal for a late teenager and had nothing to do with his father who had been four-timing the heiresses to the big shot companies at Adrian’s age, and Scott was not struggling with keeping Adrian satisfied at all. Adrian would very much like to prove Francis Railen wrong, but he also knew his father very well, better than he knew Adrian. And he knew that trying to prove him wrong would only provoke his father into doing something Adrian would not like. And so they impatiently stood in the elevator cab, not daring to touch.
Once it stopped at floor 55, Adrian rushed to the right exit, which led to his personal suits, without looking back. The Railen family owned mansions, summer houses, half of the apartment blocks, and all forms of real estate under the sun, but Adrian had insisted on being closer to Scott, and his father had relented, ordering some renovations for the floor. The result was the most advanced security system in the whole building, surpassing even that protecting the company’s deepest secrets, a canteen resolved solely for Adrian and his friends that could serve any dish, an entertainment room with retro and modern video game consoles and the most powerful computer available in the world equipped with virtual words and separate realities, and other impressive facilities. Adrian was grateful for his father’s overwhelming love, but he spent most of his days with Scott, and Scott could not proceed past the most basic measure – no ‘revived’. It had been in place since the building’s conception, and no matter how hard Adrian had begged his father to remove it, the Railen patriarch had remained unmoved. Thus the ‘lab’ had become the only place where Adrian and Scott could be together, excluding random places such as the roof, the public bathroom, or the cleaning robots’ room.
After Adrian gave the scanner his eye, mouth, and the right hand, he was allowed into the suits. Adrian was greeted by Lena, his personal ‘maid’ and unlikely friend. She was a big-framed woman beyond her fifties, and the most striking feature about her was a cybernetic right arm, which could both clean and kill. The story was that she had been heavily involved with Slavic mafia and lost her arm in a skirmish, and the clan had rejected her. Yet her fame had preceded her, and Francis Railen had restored her arm in exchange for Lena’s services to his family, and one such service had been Adrian. She could’ve been somewhere else as Francis had planned to surround his son with younger ladies who would have done more than just protecting and cleaning for him, but Adrian’s confession had come out before the plan’s finalization. His father had offered to recruit young men instead, but the idea had sounded too sordid for then 12-year-old Adrian, and he had got stuck with Lena, Anna, and Clarissa, the oldest and the deadliest of the bunch. They had accompanied him through the ugliest years and happenstances, the latest of which was Scott’s death and resurrection. Each maid had a fixed schedule, and the afternoon was Lena’s time.
‘You were sneaking out with that boy again?’ she crossed her arms, and the cybernetic one gave her a more daunting look.
‘We were still within the premises,’ Adrian protested.
Lena sighed.
‘If you don’t warn me in advance next time, the whole building will be on fire and scoured, and your father will be notified.’
‘You haven’t notified him this time?’ Adrian was surprised at Lena’s lack of loyalty to his father.
‘I know what Francis thinks about your relationship, and I also know that he makes you happy, and between your father being smug and you being happy, I will always choose the latter,’ Lena’s facial features eased into kindness.
‘Thanks, Lena,’ Adrian smiled. ‘I’m going to take a shower and go spend some time at the lab.’
‘You take too many showers these days,’ Lena growled out. ‘Your skin is going to fall off at this rate.’
‘My skin is fine and well-moisturized,’ Adrian sulked while headings towards the biggest bathroom in the country. ‘Worry about yours, I heard Clarissa complaining it’s too dry.’
‘You little shit,’ Lena started chasing after him, but Adrian was prepared and ran, locking the bathroom door with a biometric panel behind him.
***
If Scott was hurt by how fast Adrian had abandoned him, he did not show it. His face was impassive as he was making his way towards his cell. The staff barely acknowledged him, being busy with their calculations and less stable revived. One of them was Angela, an almost albino woman with a permanent broken smile on her face. Her husband had murdered her in drunken rage and later regretted it, signing her up for the revival process. He had not visited her since Angela’s admission to the building. She had a nurse like every ‘subject’ did, but the only person who she was willing to talk to was Scott. Angela happened to be a fan of his short-lived but memorable band, and her personal favourite was ‘I Want To Fuck You As The World Ends’, the song he had written shortly after starting dating Adrian. He had told her that, inciting the first genuine smile since her revival.
‘Have you told Adrian that it’s about him?’ she had asked, grinning.
‘No. He likes the song, but he thinks it’s about an ex. Makes him jealous every single time,’ Scott had admitted while painting his and Angela’s nails black to cover the death-caused blemishes.
‘Does he know that every one of your songs is about him and that you started the band only to get his attention?’ suddenly Angela’s talkativeness had been getting on Scott’s nerves.
‘You’re so awfully perceptive it scares me, Ange,’ Scott had muttered through his teeth.
‘I know more than that, a good fan woman I am, but I’ve agitated you enough,’ Angela had said, sparks of mischief playing in her grey eyes.
Scott waved at Angela, who nodded at him and returned to reading a hologram-based book. Other revived were less friendly, regarding Scott with overt hostility. They hated that he could leave the lab, they hated that he was involved with a Railen, and they hated that he had shown considerable signs of improvement while most of them looked as dead as on their first day.
‘If screwing the blondie is what makes you look so good, I want some of that ass too,’ said the middle-aged guy who had been there long before Scott.
‘Shut your pedo trap, Charlie,’ a young woman barked. It was Ingrid, who was on relatively friendly terms with Scott, although their relationship had been strained due to the fact that she was attracted to him, but he was not to her.
‘Real malakians swing all the ways and have multiple partners,’ Ingrid had spat at him after he had spurned her advances.
‘I’m a fake malakian then. And a dead one, too,’ Scott had shrugged his shoulders.
Scott ignored the rest of the comments thrown his way and darted to his room, cell, chamber. It was nicer than everyone’s, courtesy of Adrian, but it did not feel less restrictive. The bed slash berth was made, and the horror-inducing surgical tools were retracted into the ceiling or the walls. The nightstand adjacent to the bed carried pill jars and a bottle of yellow liquid, the only acceptable option for the revived. Getting drunk or high was impossible in his situation, and Scott missed that. Some pills could simulate the effect of heavy drugs, but the outcome was always unpredictable. Scott could end up coughing out his spleen or sticking his dick into the electric socket. He needed Adrian to supervise him for such moments, but the goody shoes boy avoided drugs like plague. Scott liked that about him. He could be good as far as his health was concerned, and he could be bad when only Scott was watching. And his recent bad had been arousing, at least in theory. Scott needed the pills to make him feel something. As he was shaking the jar to let pills fall into his hand, Ricky entered the room. Ricky was his personal nurse, a dark-skinned man with a bald head and a history of being in malakian circles. His assignment to Scott had been an accident, but they had managed to hit it off pretty quickly. Ricky had been good to him, but had moments of strictness.
‘Put them back,’ Ricky warned Scott.
‘But…,’ Scott was torn between fast-swallowing them and doing as Ricky said.
‘No buts with me, young man,’ Ricky drew closer, and Scott started panicking.
‘I promised Adrian,’ Scott averted his eyes.
‘You also promised me that you would take better care of your health,’ Ricky frowned. ‘Or does a promise to an old man like mean nothing to you youngsters?’
Scott put the pills back and faced his nurse.
‘Fine, Ricky. But you’ll be the one to tell Adrian to go back to his in-built castle once he comes here all cute and prepped.’
‘Listen, son,’ the word grazed Scott’s ear, but Ricky was not to blame for the sensation. If anything, he had come to be a better father to him than his actual one. ‘In six months you won’t need any pills to feel. Surely your boy is aware of that?’
Scott shifted his body awkwardly and sat on the berth. Ricky landed on it as well, but at some distance from Scott.
‘Yes, he knows everything about the process. Probably more than I do. And Adrian’s patient with me, I can see that. But…,’ Scott trailed off.
‘But what, Scotty? What is it that bothers you exactly?’ Ricky nudged him.
‘But I hate seeing him getting worked up over my… touches while I feel nothing. I can pretend that I’m on the same wavelength, but I’m not. And I think that he can see right through me, but he’s never said anything.’
‘So the problem is you and not the brat?’ Ricky asked seriously.
‘I don’t know,’ Scott’s pale face slightly contorted. ‘But one thing is for sure – if I tell him to wait for me to… recover, he won’t.’
‘And how do you know that?’ Ricky shook his head unapprovingly.
‘I know everything there’s to know about Adrian Railen,’ Scott said with a sense of misdirected pride.
‘And yet you won’t ask him directly,’ Ricky put a hand under his head, regarding Scott with curiosity.
‘I’ll tell him, I promise. But, Ricky… Can we have this one time? He always breaks the rules and gets in trouble for my sake. The least I can do is to be a functioning boyfriend,’ Scott looked at Ricky pleadingly.
Ricky bit his lip and said nothing for a while. He face did not betrayed the fight with the demons happening in his head. At last, the man relaxed.
‘For the last time, Scotty. Don’t think I don’t get love. I’ve been there, and while most of the time it was a fun ride, there were razor cuts as well.’
Scott knew about Ricky’s tumultuous love life, everyone did. He was the kind of a malakian Ingrid had described – open to everything and everyone. But it was love that had cut Ricky’s career short, and Scott could relate to that, except for the correction that love had kick-started his career as well.
‘I’ll be careful,’ Scott promised. ‘It’s just that… if I’m not with Adrian, then all of this is pointless.’
He pointed at himself, at the bottle, at the jars, at Ricky. Ricky took a deep breath and remained silent.
Scott fished some pills out of the jar and took all of them. At first, nothing happened. But then Scott gurgled and threw up on the perfectly clean resin floor, red-yellow substance slowly trickling down in all directions.
‘Scott, are you alright? Do you need an injection?’ Ricky started with concern, putting his arms over Scott’s head.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine. I can feel it working,’ Scott reassured him and then retched some more.
The door slid down, and Adrian entered the room, his smile immediately replaced by a look of sheer horror.
‘Scott, what’s wrong?’
He rushed to his side, stepping into the vomit and cursing, but the state of his chic shoes that existed only in one singular pair did not matter. He hugged Scott from behind and wiped his mouth with a napkin that had been sitting in his overalls. Scott thanked him and experienced a dry heave, which, fortunately, led to nothing.
‘Is he always like this when he takes the pills?’ Adrian asked, his eyes on the ruined floor.
‘No,’ Scott replied without hesitation.
‘Yes,’ Ricky interjected.
‘I’m fine. The sensations are returning,’ Scott said, annoyed.
‘I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this from me,’ Adrian said accusatively. ‘Fuck, if this is the price I have to pay to get laid, I’d rather stay a nun for the rest of my life.’
‘I think you meant a monk,’ Scott laughed faintly, and Adrian gave him an ‘I said what I said’ look.
‘Let’s be serious for a moment here, boys,’ Ricky scowled at them and pressed a button that had appeared out of thin air. In a swish a cleaning android entered the room and began doing his job. It was followed by a human doctor, Salidon. Scott gave the doctor a stink eye, and Adrian defensively shielded Scott from him, but there was no use trying to hinder Dr. Salidon.
‘Adri, let’s not do this,’ he said in a placating voice. ‘Let go of Scott and let me have a proper look at him.’
‘I won’t let you dissect him,’ Adrian hissed at the doctor.
‘Adrian,’ Salidon’s voice became less soothing.
Adrian surrendered and reluctantly released Scott, but not before brushing his finger against Scott’s cheek.
‘I felt that,’ Scott whispered.
‘Why don’t you wait outside while I’m performing the check-up?’ Salidon suggested, but it was clearly a command. Adrian could not rebel against the person who had seen him tied up to his mother’s body with the umbilical cord.
Adrian left the room and leaned against the wall. There were no other rooms in the vicinity, but he could hear taunts hurled at him from the distant cells, as one did not have to think hard to imagine what had happened in Scott’s room. The side-effects of the pills, at least the common ones, were known, and to Adrian as well. But he had never put two and two together when it came to Scott. And Scott had never told him about the hell he had to go through every time just to make Adrian feel more comfortable.
‘This is what you get for hooking up with one of us,’ someone shouted at him, and Adrian could not tell if it was real or a hallucination.
Ten minutes later Salidon exited the room and gave Adrian a tricky smile.
‘He’s fine. He took more pills than necessary and overdosed. I hope it will be a lesson to you, Adri. I understand that you have urges – we all do, but be more considerate of Scott. It might mess up his recovery process.’
The doctor left, and Adrian was fuming. He might have urges, but he was willing to supress them for the sake of Scott. And it was Scott who had suggested everything. Adrian hated how complicated everything was.
Ricky exited the room as well and gave Adrian a meaningful look.
‘I hope that you two will have a good talk about this. It’s been a long way coming.’
Adrian sighed and entered Scott’s room. His boyfriend was lying on the bed, naked except for the white underwear. His skin was mostly pale, but there were individual patches with more beige in them. Death took away Scott’s musculature and weight, leaving him even skinnier than Adrian. The scientist said that his strength would be regained eventually, but sometimes looking at Scott was too much for Adrian, and he knew that Scott hated being looked at in a pitying way. So he gathered whatever nerve he had and looked at Scott in the way he deserved at that moment – a lustful appreciation.
‘Ricky said that we should have a talk,’ Adrian blurted out.
‘A talk doesn’t have to be done in words,’ Scott smirked at him and rubbed his hand against his underwear, making Adrian swallow.
‘You’re right,’ Adrian said and undid his overalls.
***
‘Why have you been hiding the side-effects from me?’ Adrian asked while Scott was still on top of him.
‘I was afraid of how you’d react. And you’d probably say no to sex until full recovery,’ Scott grunted and planted a kiss on Adrian’s collarbone.
‘You know me well. This is the last time,’ Adrian’s blue pierced Scott’s grey.
‘Adri…,’ Scott mouthed, but he did not get to finish the sentence as a group of guards led by Adrian’s father barged into the room.
‘I’m so disappointed in you, son,’ he declared, and Adrian’s only hope was that his father’s disappointed was not caused by his sexual role. ‘And you, Scott. I’m afraid I’ll have to restrain you for the time being and enforce a more thorough examination of your body.’
They talked about many things after the make-out session. Dmitry was surprised to learn that Egor shared his taste in obscure anime series and not-so-popular Nintendo games. Egor also shared that he could cook, to which Dmitry joked that he would be the one to do the cooking, not specifying what he meant in particular. Dmitry told Egor about his brother and the magic that had manifested him, and Egor kept fishing for more details.
‘Why are you so curious about this?’ Dmitry laughed, limply punching Egor in the right pec. ‘I told you I can’t make another one. You can’t have fun with two of me.’
‘Shut up,’ Egor sealed Dmitry’s lips with his fingers. ‘That’s not why I’m asking, but thanks for planting the idea in my head.’
‘There must be some solution to this,’ Egor licked his moist fingers in return, making Dmitry ruby. ‘But thinking is not my forte.’
They shared more affectionate and slightly suggestive gestures throughout the day, and eventually Egor fell asleep. Dmitry covered his body with a blanket and put his head on the spot where Egor’s heart was supposed to be, taking in every beat. Dmitry could not believe it. Egor liked him, liked him back. He was not really a bigot, on the contrary, he had given his identity more thought than most people, although he still had to unlearn some things. And he found Dmitry hot. Hot was not how Dmitry would describe himself, but maybe others saw him differently. Desired him differently. But it was time to forget the others. Egor seemed to desire to him, and Dmitry desired him back. Egor was in no condition to do anything, and Dmitry was in no rush. The promise of something did make the wait worth it and supressed the hunger that had been building inside Dmitry. Also, Egor knew that Dmitry was a virgin but had not judged him, having only shown sympathy. Perhaps there was a chance. A chance to discuss the intimate part with Egor and discover what each of them wanted. But it would be a task for another day. Dmitry’s eyes closed, and he fell asleep, his head on Egor’s body.
Dmitry did not remember how he had woken up, but he definitely felt Egor’s hand on his hair, and he wanted to stay in that position for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, someone else was in the vicinity, and Dmitry could see that Egor clearly was not a fan of the visitor judging by the dark shadow on his face. Dmitry smoothly pushed Egor’s hand aside and straightened himself to have a look at whoever had disturbed their peace.
‘I should’ve known you’d be here. I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Andrey, because of course it was him, said distraughtly.
Dmitry did not deign to respond to him.
‘Are you still mad at what I said?’ Andrey asked with a softer tone, which still happened to be quite rough.
‘No. I’m mad at you beating up people now,’ Dmitry have him a stink eye.
‘He attacked me first,’ Andrey immediately jumped at self-defence.
‘And yet he’s the one in the infirmary, being refused proper treatment, while you’re running around scot-free. How do you explain that?’
‘He’s a big boy, he’ll recover,’ Andrey said aloofly. ‘And will probably think first next time he wants to throw hands.’
‘Fuck you, Andrey. You’ve grown into such an eblan. Get out of my sight,’ Dmitry said menacingly.
‘Or what?’ Andrey taunted him.
‘Or I’ll…,’ and suddenly Andrey was levitating, his limbs helplessly flailing in the air. Dmitry looked at his arms with a sense of wonder and then made a throwing motion, and Andrey was flung into the wall with a boom. Zhenya, who had been napping at the desk, rose and shone.
‘Boys, if you want to let that testosterone out, do it outside. Tatyana will still kill you, but at least she won’t kill me,’ she grumbled. Everyone ignored her.
‘Did you do that?’ Egor said in awe. ‘Another hidden talent?’
‘More like an extension of the one that’s responsible for destroying everything,’ Dmitry murmured while watching Andrey get back on his feet.
‘You hate me this much, huh?’ Andrey gasped.
‘Still not as much as you hate yourself,’ Dmitry replied condescendingly.
‘Fine. I only came to tell you that the principal is pairing us up starting next week,’ Andrey said hoarsely.
‘You’re kidding. Who’d want to pair up with you after all this?’ Dmitry was ready to spit at Andrey’s face.
‘It’s either this, or be paired up with a girl. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and take it.’
‘I don’t want to look at the horse, full stop. Especially a nasty one like you,’ Dmitry’s mood was savage.
‘You know what’ll happen when you’re paired up with a girl. If you’re ready to go through that, be my guest,’ Andrey said mysteriously.
‘Why should I be paired up with a girl? I want to be paired up with Egor,’ Dmitry said warily, looking at Egor’s face for reassurance. To his relief, he found it.
‘Yeah, why you or a girl? I agree to be Dmitry’s partner. Tell that to the principal, or we’ll do it ourselves.’
‘Too bad for you, not-a-pretty-boy-anymore, you’ve been selected to pair up with a girl next week, too. The pairs are not decided by the school but by a higher instance, so good luck persuading them,’ there was overt glee in Andrey’s voice, and Dmitry wanted to give him another shove to the wall.
‘Whatever. We’ll work it out. Now get lost, or I’ll send you flying again,’ Dmitry shooed him away.
Andrey did not need more convincing and left. Dmitry watched his departing back with open hostility, his nose releasing air like a bull. Egor hugged him from behind, and Dmitry slowly calmed down.
‘So, a week, huh? And then we’ll have to fight the system?’ Egor remarked cheerfully.
‘I mean, they might pair me up with him, but it doesn’t mean anything. We can just meet in secret or something.’
‘What did he mean by you know what happens with a girl? What will happen?’ Egor suddenly asked, and Dmitry pinched himself for failing to address the elephant in the room.
‘How about… we make the most of the week and forget about his bullshit for the time being?’ Dmitry lowered his head to match Egor’s and looked straight into his eyes, losing himself in the blue.
***
Dmitry visited Egor later on Tuesday, on Wednesday and on Thursday. He ambidextrously managed not to be late for breakfast every time, and Tatyana always looked like someone had poisoned her food. Dmitry took the responsibilities of feeding Egor, accompanying him to the restroom, and changing his clothes. Dmitry pretended to be modest while doing the lattermost, although Egor did not seem to mind Dmitry ogling him. Egor had a cast on his left foot and allowed Dmitry to write some silly messages on it. Dmitry could not think of anything but E+D=L, and he was glad that Egor could not see that. Sometimes they kissed, sometimes Egor let Dmitry leave a hickey on his neck, but they had not gone further than that. Dmitry did not want to take advantage of the injured person and to make his firsts awkward. On Thursday the nurse discharged Egor, probably due to being sick of the lovebirds in her den, and gave him a crutch. Before they could leave, a wild Valera had appeared.
‘Yo, Dima, I haven’t seen you at my private lessons for ages. The lack of audience makes me strive for greatness less,’ he said with fake sulkiness.
‘I’ve been taking care of Egor since no one else seems to… well, care,’ Dmitry said impatiently. ‘I’ll come to the lesson tomorrow.’
‘You can make it up to me by coming to the party tonight. You both are invited,’ Valera winked. ‘Alla will be there. Some older students as well. I think they’re interested in getting to know y’all.’
‘Okay, we’ll be there,’ Egor answered for them. ‘I hope it’ll be better than the previous one.’
‘For sure. We are going to play the seduction game,’ Valera sounded conspirational. ‘And one of you is definitely going to enjoy that.’
‘Um, Valera?’ Dmitry tried to gain his attention. He and Egor had decided to make their relationship known to the table group to avoid awkwardness and gossip. The rest of the school would have to wait. ‘I don’t know what kind of game that is, but it appears that Egor can enjoy the same things as I do.’
He gave Egor a quick kiss, making the guy blush. Valera’s expression was priceless.
‘Wow, you two got close fast. You better tell me all about that tomorrow, Di,’ Valera said with admiration.
‘You can tell Katya but nobody else. I’ll tell Alla myself, I guess, since she was setting me up with someone, and I don’t need that anymore.’
‘You got it. Laters, newlyweds.’
Valera left, and Dmitry and Egor followed. They reached Egor’s room, and Dmitry helped him settle down. There was some kind of correspondence on the cupboard, which Dmitry relayed to Egor. He looked through some of the letters, and his face got stuck in a frown.
‘Anything you should be concerned about?’ Dmitry asked him.
‘Just reminders… and yeah, a notice that I’ll be paired up with a girl next week. Her name’s Marina.’
‘I think I saw her on my ride back. She looked like a typical otaku,’ Dmitry said cautiously.
‘Honestly, I don’t care. I’ll tell her that our relationship is just for a show, maybe she’ll understand. If she doesn’t, well, that’s her problem,’ Egor said, slightly irritated.
‘Good luck. I mean it,’ Dmitry said and touched Egor’s shoulder.
‘Anyway, do you want to do… anything fun?’ Egor sounded suggestive, and Dmitry was about to say yes, but he had a better idea.
‘You know, since we’re going to the party… Maybe we’ll loosen up a bit and then take the things up from there. And I’m curious about that game Valera mentioned,’ Dmitry kept drawing circles on Egor’s shoulders.
‘I guess you’re right. I got all stiff from the stay in the infirmary, and not in the place I want it to be,’ Egor smiled at Dmitry. ‘So loosening up sounds good.’
‘Should I fetch you later?’
‘Yeah, let’s go there together. Our first outing,’ they both laughed.
As promised, Dmitry grabbed Egor at 10 pm, and they both headed to Katya’s room. Dmitry had changed into a semi-fashionable T-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans, while Egor was in a plain black sweater and tight trousers. Egor complimented Dmitry’s bold fashion choices, and Dmitry snorted. Katya welcomed them at the door, commenting on Dmitry’s clothing as well.
‘Loving the ripped jeans and the shaved legs under them! Is that an eyeliner I see? Damn, Dmitry, you’re gonna put those straight guys to shame,’ Katya ohed and ahed approvingly.
‘Just a smidge,’ Dmitry shook his head. ‘Not my fault those boys are too fragile to try it. Would look great on Valera, by the way.’
‘I’ll consider giving him a makeover. Anticipate his transformation next time!’ Katya nodded her head.
‘Looking forward to it,’ Dmitry said and proceeded into the depths of the room. Somehow it was made to feel bigger, and there was enough space for a bar, a mini-pool, and a dancefloor. Everyone was already getting their life to Lada Dance’s Baby Tonight, for which Dmitry also had some appreciation, so he beckoned Egor to follow him.
‘Finally some good fucking food,’ Alla shouted and waved at them from the other side of the dancefloor. ‘Let’s show them how to have real fun.’
Dmitry could only oblige and dance his ass off, intermittently letting Egor grind against him and share touches when no one was looking. For others they appeared as some dumb boys having fun, but Alla gave them occasional thumb ups, and Katya’s smile was more about them being relatively open than anything, or so Dmitry wanted to believe. Valera was more about drinking than dancing, which did not hinder him from coming to the dancefloor and fool around with them, too. The song choices were also surprisingly palatable, as if the DJ had deliberately excluded anything not to Dmitry’s liking. At some point Katya started clapping her hands to draw attention to an important announcement.
‘Okay, so now we’re going to play the seduction game. For those who are in the tank, the rules are simple. We have a team of girls and a team of boys. The girls will do nothing and just stand there at the wall. The boys’ goal is to seduce them, and to do that successfully they’ll have to undress to their underwear and take a dip in the pool. Then they should approach a girl, or girls, it doesn’t matter, and don’t get jealous, people, and try to sweet-talk to her or them. If seduction is successful, a girl should kiss a guy. If it isn’t, she can kick him in the balls. The boy is free to try again until someone gives him a kiss or remain a sore loser for the rest of the night. Are the rules clear?’
There was a commotion in the crowd, with the guys complaining about the game being too sexist and feminist, but Dmitry liked the rules and wondered who had come up with them.
‘I guess I’m going to be one of the girls,’ he said loudly, causing a few gasps.
‘Damn right, you…,’ one of the guys was about to say something totally expected and bigoted, but Alla was quick to kick him in the balls before the game even started.
Dmitry turned to Egor, who had been sweating from all the dancing. While on the dancefloor he had mostly moved his upper body not to put any strain on his leg, but the game did not seem a good fit for him at all.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Dmitry murmured. ‘And I’m not expecting anything, so just relax.’
‘No, no, I’ll do it. Can’t have some Valeras stealing kisses from you,’ Egor said with determination and quickly took off his sweater and undershirt.
‘I’ll be waiting then, my prince,’ Dmitry said sweetly and took a place at the wall. Other girls were eyeing him unkindly, and the girl who had approached him was among them. She was probably still vexed by his rejection to assist them in the sex ritual, although Dmitry did not want to give her much thought as most guys were already undressed and ready to wet themselves. Some had average bodies, some were on their way to become gym rats, and some had more variety in their body types, which was a welcome addition. Regardless, he was mostly focused on Egor, who slowly heading to the pool, his arm in a sling and his foot in a cast. He was the bravest of them all, and the hottest, even if his body was not in the best shape. He did not even have to seduce Dmitry because his heart had already belonged to him.
Several guys were getting kissed or kicked, and no one dared approach Dmitry or Alla, who had been keeping him a company.
‘They think I’ll turn them gay if they kiss me. Their loss,’ she complained. ‘Gay club parties will always be superior.’
‘I was supposed to meet that guy at one of the clubs, right?’ Dmitry wondered.
‘Yeah, but I see that you don’t need him anymore. Poor thing, he was so excited to meet you,’ Alla lamented.
‘Well, I can still come to the club, right? And we can have some fun without necessarily… you know.’
‘Actually, you’re right. You should come, get to know your people because this joint is definitely not it.’
‘Still kissless?’ Valera interrupted them. ‘What happened to your boyfriend?’
‘Shhh,’ Dmitry rushed to silence Valera. ‘He’s still in the pool.’
‘It’s okay, it’s just a party. What happens at the party stays at the party,’ Valera said ominously and then kissed Dmitry, tongue and all.
‘What the fuck,’ Dmitry exhaled after Valera had let go of his mouth. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to kiss you?’
‘I think you’re already properly seduced by me, so why waste time? You taste sweet, by the way. Sweeter than a maiden,’ Valera licked his lips. ‘I might want a second helping one day.’
‘What… what will Katya say? She’ll murder us both,’ Dmitry flushed and stuttered.
‘Not when she’s the one who suggested this,’ Valera laughed and went to bother the girls.
Meanwhile, Egor was limping back, and Dmitry did not want to think about the damage Valera’s kiss had done to their rookie relationship. However, Egor appeared to be smiling, and not in an ‘I’ll dismember you later for that’ way.
‘Sorry for the wait. I see Valera’s warmed up those lips for me,’ Egor said in a flirty tone.
‘Is that your idea of seduction because I don’t think it will work on me,’ Dmitry said impertinently.
‘What will, then?’ Egor sounded puzzled.
‘Come closer,’ Dmitry commanded, and Egor obeyed.
‘It won’t work because I’m already wet down there,’ Dmitry whispered into Egor’s ear and slipped his tongue into Egor’s mouth.
No one seemed to pay attention to the fact that Dmitry and Egor’s kiss was more than a joke, and they managed to get as much as possible from it. Emboldened by either alcohol or the overall horny situation, a random guy attempted to kiss Dmitry, and Egor reluctantly released him. Dmitry quietly suggested that Egor should kiss some girls, assuring him that he would be fine with that for the sake of Egor’s cover. Another guy gave Dmitry a sloppy kiss and asked him whether he gave blowjobs as well.
‘No,’ Dmitry flinched and pushed the guy aside. ‘Ask that again, and I’ll give you a blow job. The same one Eduard was given.’
The guy immediately scurried away, just in time for Egor to return.
‘Did he give you any trouble?’ he asked with a hint of possessiveness.
‘I’m more likely to give him trouble,’ Dmitry insisted. ‘Anyway, want to get out of here? All these kisses are making me… eager for more.’
‘I was afraid you’d never ask,’ Egor grinned. ‘Let’s move.’
Katya caught them at the door, out of breath and her hair loose.
‘Leaving already? We’re about to play Truth or Dare.’
‘Great party, Katya, but I have to take Egor to his room and, you know… we want to get to know each other. In the Biblical sense,’ Dmitry gave her a shrewd look.
‘Oh. Oh. Of course,’ Katya appeared to have caught Dmitry’s drift. ‘Have fun, guys. Who needs truth or dare when you two are already truthful and daring. Yeah.’
They said their goodbyes, and Dmitry caught a glimpse of Valera, who looked lost against the bedlam. Gone was his earlier confidence, and something seemed to be gnawing at him. Dmitry was sad to leave him in such a state, but Katya would take care of him. And he would take care of Egor. Probably. They made it to Egor’s room with unusual swiftness, both sufficiently aroused. Egor locked the door behind them and looked at Dmitry expectantly, his eyes pure wildness.
Following a heart-to-heart with his brother, Dmitry ‘borrowed’ his grandmother’s enema, which she probably would not miss, if she even remembered possessing one. Dmitry might have envisioned himself as some kind of an ‘active’, but Mark was ultimately right – the guy (preferably Egor) would likely to be the one in charge, and Dmitry would just follow the lead.
His story was not a young adult rose-coloured one where two guys were both each other’s first times and where they could experiment and decide what would be the best for them. Even Andrey, despite his professed love, would not let a virgin order him around, Dmitry was sure. He read a bit about what he was supposed to do with the cursed thing and ate lightly, drawing his grandma’s ire, but he would rather suffer her disappointment than another guy’s. Secretly hoping that his preparations would be in vain, Dmitry went to bed, and his dreams were alarmingly chaste. Dmitry wanted to think that it was a good sign. After all, he did not want to be all about sex. The excitement was getting to him, making him forget all the mysteries he had to unravel upon returning to hell. What made him so worked up? Why was he acutely aware that something might happen? He could not explain the nagging feeling. Was it the way Egor had been looking at him with so much clarity in all the sleepiness? No matter the outcome, he had to see him.
Dmitry was almost late to the first train as the token machine had refused to accept his money, and he wondered how he would reach the school in case of missing the train. Would Tatyana personally escort him? The mental image made him giggle. The train car was empty sans Dmitry and two strangers. One was an old man with deep wrinkles on his face and a cane, and the other was a girl his age with pink hair poorly contained by her hat with a logo of some anime. She caught him staring and gave him a smile he could not return due to the mask. And he did not want to return it regardless. There was nothing to appreciate as Dmitry’s body and face were mostly hidden, but her look was still too evaluating. It made him want to come up to her and tell her that she was barking at the wrong tree, even though she had not said a word. Once they were past the point of no return, it became apparent that both the girl and the man shared the same destination as him. The old man was probably Eduard’s replacement, and Dmitry pitied the students who would be under his thumb. The girl was inauspicious news – her arrival only meant that she would be paired with someone, either Egor or Dmitry. Tatyana had promised that he would be satisfied with the arrangement, but Dmitry had doubts regarding that. They could technically discuss anime, even something more or less mainstream, and then what? Awkward sex in front of the cameras, her eyes expectant and his directed at anything but her?
The train stopped, and Dmitry dashed out of it to avoid a conversation, but the girl was fast as well. Her green eyes, a bit muddier than Dmitry’s, were full of curiosity.
‘Hi, I’m Marina,’ she beamed at him. ‘Are you also a student? I was afraid I’d be the only grown-up here!’
‘Yes,’ Dmitry replied brusquely and started climbing the stairs with the speed he thought he did not have in him.
‘Hey, not so fast! I didn’t even catch your name!’ she pouted, but Dmitry was already in the lobby taking off his clothes.
The cloakroom lady kindly took his parka and handed him the slippers, but no one else was present. He had expected Andrey or Egor to greet him, but the welcoming ceremony had been cancelled. The principal was also nowhere to be seen despite the new student needing some sort of an introduction, and he was not about to become her guide. The girl’s pink hair was visible on the horizon, and Dmitry scampered up the stairs in the most cowardly fashion.
His basic room appeared to have been tidied up, and the drab sheets had been replaced with more colourful ones. Dmitry took his time to make himself look presentable and stealthily made use of the bathroom. By the time he returned to the room, the first bell for breakfast had rung, and Dmitry headed to the canteen with a muffled sense of excitement. He would see Egor, but their conversation was not for Katya’s or Valera’s ears. Perhaps his attitude would hint at something? As he was making his way to the canteen’s door, he was catching the looks of other students, which were full of envy. He could not blame them, but if they disagreed with the school’s policy, they could always bring it to Tatyana’s attention. But the principal seemed to enjoy siccing students on one another for some reason, and one could only hope it would not backfire on her in the long run.
Dmitry was the first at their table, and the duo of Katya and Valera arrived with some delay, their post-morning coitus bliss tangible in the air. Katya was laughing at some joke when Valera spotted Dmitry and waved at him.
‘The Wandering Dima is back! How was your weekend?’ he asked with a wink while taking his usual seat.
‘Not good. And hello to you both,’ Dmitry sulked.
‘What happened?’ Katya asked, the gossip girl in her having activated.
‘Well, my twin brother is dating my best friend, which they were hiding from me,’ Dmitry shared easily, surprising himself.
‘Oh,’ Valera’s mouth made a big O. ‘Is your friend a boy or a girl? Sorry, I don’t want to assume stuff.’
‘Look how I’ve taught him,’ Katya made a bragging gesture. ‘Pavlov could never.’
Valera made a face at her, which could be described as affectionate annoyance. Dmitry himself would like to believe that their talk was not for nought and that Valera would be more… aware.
‘A girl. Sorry, a typical “girls are a gay’s best friend” story,’ Dmitry grimaced. ‘She was into me when we both in uni, and I came out to her when she asked me out. I thought she was using me to get closer to my brother, aka the straight one, but I completely misunderstood the situation. It still sucked, I guess.’
‘Sounds complicated,’ Valera summarized. ‘Girls are complicated. I prefer the company of my bros. And gay bros too.’
He winked at Dmitry, making him click his tongue.
‘Ugh, boys,’ Katya shook her head. ‘Don’t let him broify you, Dima. Otherwise you’ll start going to the gym and rate girls on a scale of 0 to 10.’
‘A gym sounds disgusting,’ Dmitry pretended to vomit. ‘And you rate girls, really? Then don’t act all shocked when someone rates you back one of these days.’
‘No, not anymore,’ Valera was indignant. ‘Why would I when Katya is 10 out of 10? And anyone who disagrees will have to kiss this fist. So, what do you think, Dima?’
‘I don’t rate girls,’ Dmitry dismissed him.
‘Alright, then rate me,’ Valera smiled devilishly. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hit you. Just curious.’
‘Yeah, I’m curious too. Can my boyfriend make a guy’s heart flutter? Or is he hopeless and can only be loved by me?’ Katya nudged Dmitry.
Dmitry felt as if he had been between a rock and hard place because there was no good answer. The truth was that Valera was about 9/10, but that would make Katya suspicious of his feelings. On the other hand, saying anything lower than that could hurt Valera’s feelings. He would have disregarded them before, but they were experiencing a budding friendship, and he did not want a stupid rating to ruin it.
‘Let me see,’ Dmitry pretended to think. ‘I’d say a solid 7, but there’s a potential to go as far as 9. But that’s very good for a straight guy. Anything more would require… a thorough investigation.’
‘Fuck me,’ Valera burst out laughing. ‘That was a good one.’
Katya was also laughing, tears in her eyes, and Dmitry let out a sigh of relief. But no more rates, he thought to himself.
‘So,’ Katya began once her laughing fit had worn out. ‘You’re saying that you can’t give those celebrity guys a 10?’
‘Celebrity guys don’t do it for me in general,’ Dmitry shrugged his shoulders. ‘But yeah, I’m one of those people who need to touch to truly feel something. And it’s all Photoshop and make-up with them anyway. I prefer my beauty flawed but unadulterated.’
Katya and Valera gave him a funny look, and Dmitry cursed himself for being too upfront about his feelings. But then their expressions eased into a smile, and Dmitry felt less awkward.
‘I see what you mean,’ Katya said after some deliberation. ‘Actually, many people probably share your mind-set, but they can’t put it into words. Like, I don’t mind looking at those Hollywood guys, but would I date them even with all that money? No way. And a perfect person doesn’t exist anyway. Moreover, having no flaws is sus. It means that he has them but you can’t see them, which makes it scary.’
Valera nodded at her, and Dmitry mimicked him. The flaw discussion inadvertently made Dmitry’s mind wander towards Egor. Was the nurse just a flaw? Or was he hiding even more pitfalls behind those blue eyes? And speaking of Egor…
‘Um, the breakfast is almost over, but Egor isn’t coming, has something happened?’ Dmitry asked the couple.
‘Oh, well,’ Katya absent-mindedly chewed on a cookie that had been provided with the meal. Dmitry had not touched anything for reasons, and he had already been regretting his choices.
‘He’s in the infirmary,’ Valera blurted out.
‘What?’ Dmitry almost snapped at him.
‘He was in a fight and got beaten up pretty badly,’ Valera clarified, his eyes on Katya. ‘We can’t say more – he asked us not to tell you that specifically.’
‘What the…,’ Dmitry was dumbfounded. ‘Where’s the infirmary?’
‘The third floor, the end of the left wing. You could ask the nurse to accompany you there,’ Katya was also avoiding looking at Dmitry.
Dmitry forced himself to look at the staff’s table, where Zhenya was sitting alone, as in without a partner opposite her. She was the only one with the privilege, and she was also… on the men’s side. That was strange, but Dmitry wrote it off as someone’s whim to touch her surreptitiously.
‘No,’ Dmitry said firmly.
‘If you think that she fucks Egor all night long there, you can’t be more wrong because last time I saw him, he was in no position to do so,’ Valera tried to smooth Dmitry’s displeasure. ‘And she must have some kind of ethics.’
‘I really doubt that,’ Dmitry gave Zhenya another scornful look. ‘Well, thanks for telling me about him. I’ll be on my way then.’
He waited for the breakfast to be over and happened to be the first person at the door. Unexpectedly, someone grabbed his arm, and his eyes met the principal, her face inscrutable.
‘Dmitry, did Andrey…,’ she began saying in a ceremonious way.
‘I have no time for you,’ he whispered at her angrily, fully aware that his attitude would not go unpunished. ‘Egor was hurt, and where were you? Probably endorsing that.’
‘I-,’ Dmitry did not want to hear the rest and escaped the canteen.
Dmitry reached the infirmary relatively quickly, but the door was locked, so he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. 10 minutes later he heard the clacking of heels, harbingering the arrival of the nurse. She sized him up and have him an equally disdainful look.
‘Came to check on your sweetheart?’ the nurse asked Dmitry with contempt.
‘My sweetheart? I wasn’t the one who screwed him,’ Dmitry parried.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she fluttered her eyelashes at him and unlocked the door. ‘Come in. You can cry at his side for all day, I don’t care. They aren’t paying me enough for this shit.’
She swaggered around the infirmary and landed on the leather chair in front of a messy desk she seemed to have no intention to clear out. Dmitry sighed and went on his search for Egor, which was not difficult as the beds were empty, and the only occupied one was on the far side of the infirmary next to the window. Dmitry quietly approached the bed and took the sole chair, which was a bit too small for him. Egor was sleeping peacefully, his breath steady. His right eye was blackened, and one of his arms was in a sling. He was probably naked under the blanket, which caused outrage rather than arousal as it was winter, but the infirmary appeared to be magically… warm, which explained the oversight. Dmitry kept admiring the sleeping beauty, the flawed beauty, but then Egor stirred and opened his eyes (half-opened the damaged one, to be more precise). Upon seeing Dmitry, he managed a semblance of a smile, and Dmitry spotted a missing tooth in the upper row.
‘Dmitry. You’re back.’
‘Hi,’ Dmitry said. ‘What the fuck happened to you?’
‘Got into a fight and lost. It happens,’ Egor said weakly.
‘With who? Katya and Valera wouldn’t tell,’ Dmitry demanded softly.
‘Wow, they can be trustworthy when they want,’ Egor marvelled. ‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes,’ Dmitry nodded although something was telling that there was only one possible perpetrator.
‘It was Andrey. We got into it after you’d left.’
‘But you went back after meeting me,’ Dmitry eyed him suspiciously.
‘Well, I realized I had something else to tell you, but it was too late… and then I heard the shit he was telling you, and all hells broke loose once you were gone.’
‘You mean the vibes talk?’ Dmitry gasped. ‘You heard it all?’
‘Yeah,’ Egor half-nodded, still lying on the bed. ‘I couldn’t take it, so I threw the first punch, but he was stronger, so… You can’t see it, but he got my leg too’
‘Jesus… Why aren’t they healing you with the magic?’ Dmitry sounded furious.
‘The principal said that everything would heal in time, so Zhenya… the nurse wouldn’t have to waste the resources. At least they feed me.’
Dmitry knew that the principal disliked Egor, but to the point that she had denied him care… He distrusted her more and more with each deed, and he hated that Egor had been hurt because of him.
‘You know, he was right, Andrey. You didn’t have to go all the way for me,’ Dmitry said softly.
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Egor was adamant. ‘He’s parroting the nonsense this country is teaching the population. You’re dressed a certain way – you’re gay, you act a certain way – you’re gay. No one cares whether you’re actually attracted to men, and it sounds too convenient for him.’
‘That it does,’ Dmitry admitted with annoyance. ‘But for the record, I don’t care. I feel like I’ve spent all my life trying to fit in, but it hasn’t really done me any good. Being out is not so bad.’
‘It was brave of you,’ there was admiration in Egor’s voice. ‘You’re confident in who you are. Unlike me.’
‘Oh?’ there was a spark in Dmitry’s eyes. ‘And what are you exactly?’
‘I’m… well… pan, I guess,’ Egor answered with some hesitation.
‘Oh? Pan? Not bi? You do know that for some people it implies being attracted to non-binary people, and you seemed kinda dismissive of that.’
Egor sighed.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to come at you like that,’ Dmitry sounded apologetic. ‘You don’t have to answer.’
‘Look, it’s just that… when I’m confronted with the existence of gender or the idea that you can be more than a man or a woman, I feel lost,’ Egor explained. ‘My dad always pushed that real man shit on me, and once I realized that I liked guys, I couldn’t fit into that image. Yeah, as I grew older I understood that liking men had nothing to do with how manly you’re, but even after all that I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of what a man is and whether I belong to it. I have the male body, anatomy, alright, I use the male grammatical endings when describing myself, and I’m comfortable with that. But sometimes I feel like there’s something more to me than being a man – I don’t want to be reduced to that, and I’ll extend the same courtesy to other people.’
‘Interesting,’ Dmitry mused. ‘You have some hidden depths. I like that.’
There was a slight flush on Egor’s face.
‘You get what I’m talking about?’
‘Yeah. Personally, I just crafted my own definition of a man, and I feel content with it. Soe might find it too broad, whatever. If you think that manhood is too restrictive for you, your feelings are also valid. Why do I feel like I’m the first person you told that to?’ Dmitry teased slightly.
‘Because you are,’ Egor’s flush deepened. ‘I don’t know English well, so I can’t talk to those Tumblr gender philosophers, and my friends are pretty conservative when it comes to… most things really. Sometimes I accidentally end up echoing their points and making a fool out of myself.
‘I’m honoured,’ Dmitry said seriously. ‘So you’re pan, you like guys, girls and anyone really too, I assume?’
‘Well, I’ve been with everyone,’ Egor’s face still retained the red. ‘I had a girlfriend, a sort-of boyfriend I couldn’t tell anyone about, a person who made me think deeper about what I am… And then there were flings. You know about one of them.’
‘Sounds like… a fulfilling love life,’ Dmitry said while trying to conceal his disappointment. So Egor was properly experienced, and he was not. His chances were dwindling with every second.
‘What about you?’ Egor asked, and Dmitry wanted to explode into volcano ash.
‘Nothing,’ Dmitry whispered. ‘I tried getting into dating last summer, but it was hopeless.’
‘Really?’ the surprise in Egor’s voice made Dmitry want to evaporate ever more. ‘But… Alright, I get it. We live in not so friendly of a country. I just had the opportunities, but not everyone will.’
‘Thanks for your understanding,’ Dmitry said stiffly.
‘The school must’ve messed up your plans, right?’ Egor asked thoughtfully. ‘It won’t be easy finding someone here.’
‘I have my weekends off, and Alla promised to hook me up with a guy,’ Dmitry shrugged. ‘If all goes well, I might not be single for much longer.’
‘Oh,’ there was something in Egor’s voice that had caught Dmitry’s attention. ‘So you have someone in mind.’
‘As a plan B, I guess, since I’ve been hoping for a certain person to… notice me.’
‘Who? Andrey?’ Egor’s tone was pure anger. ‘I mean, I won’t begrudge you for that, but the man has no…’
Dmitry’s fingers touched Egor’s face, circling around his bad eye, and Egor went silent, the frequency of his breath out of the charts.
‘You’re so oblivious,’ Dmitry said and gave Egor a peck on the cheek, which went the deepest shade of red. ‘My hero.’
‘You… like me?’ Egor asked incredulously and excitedly at the same time.
‘Yeah, I do. Is that a problem?’ Dmitry started caressing Egor’s good arm.
‘No,’ Egor exhaled. ‘Because you’ve been driving me crazy ever since I had a good look at those green eyes.’
It was Dmitry’s turn to blush, and he let go of Egor to cover his face. Egor’s hand joined in, and Dmitry allowed himself to be touched gently.
‘Crazy enough to make you sleep with someone else?’ Dmitry blurted out.
‘Dmitry, listen,’ Egor said without letting go of Dmitry. ‘I don’t know what happened there, and I’m sorry. I was drunk and horny, and you seemed out of reach. Then something compelled me to seek the nurse. I don’t know. It’s like ever since she’d made that offer I was under some kind of a charming spell. Did I think she was hot? Yes. But I also forgot to mention that you were hot, too.’
Dmitry grabbed Egor’s hand, guiding him to wipe the tears forming under his eyes.
‘A charming spell, you say?’ Dmitry mumbled.
‘Yes, but… It can’t be a real one, right?’ Egor said while raising his upper body from the bed, his face drawing closer to Dmitry’s. Dmitry had correctly surmised that Egor was naked underneath it, although he could have never guessed that it would be his nakedness to claim. But whatever dirty thoughts he had were interrupted by a kiss as innocent as a sin.
‘I have my suspicions… But for now I’m glad I’ve found you,’ Dmitry managed after having recovered from the second kiss in his life and went for another one.
The bath time was not as pleasant as Dmitry had imagined. In addition to having to wash his hair three times, he cut himself while shaving, which had not happened for years, and his right foot had a huge blister that would require a puncture. The water was so murky following Dmitry’s exit that he decided to bathe again on Sunday and consider the ways he could have a shower at school without compromising himself.
He hated showers, but the recurrent theme of the lyceum had been ‘the things Dmitry hates,’ so it seemed appropriate. During the cleansing Dmitry’s thoughts were also full of grim thoughts, which might have contributed to the disaster. He devoured everything his grandmother had cooked for breakfast, to her delight, and asked for more omelette. She kept accusing the school of starving him to death, to which Dmitry only uh-huhed unenthusiastically. Having washed the dishes, Dmitry went to his room and lay on his bed, imbibing the security and peacefulness it provided. They did not last long as Mark entered the room without knocking.
‘You’re lucky I haven’t been jerking off,’ Dmitry said bitterly.
‘Who jerks off after taking the bath? And the music trick doesn’t work on me because I didn’t hear you sing along,’ Mark occupied Dmitry’s ‘gaming’ chair and whistled.
‘Fuck you,’ Dmitry almost threw a pillow at his twin.
‘I know you’re lonely and horny, but I hope that it will never come to this,’ Mark said thoughtfully, a finger on his chin.
Dmitry chose to ignore Mark again and faced the wall, but Mark was instantly on him, pulling him on the other side with his strong arms. Dmitry tried to resist, but the dumb muscles won. He stretched his arm to grab his phone, but Mark intercepted the attempt.
‘Talk. To. Me,’ Mark hissed through his teeth.
‘Or what? You’re gonna hit me?’ Dmitry winced, picturing the situation in all the colours.
‘No. I’m going to hug you until you melt,’ his brother said gently.
‘Okay.’
Dmitry calmed down, having surmised that making an enemy out of an unknown entity was not the wisest choice. And there was something comforting about his presence despite the devastation he had brought.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Ulyana?’ Dmitry asked.
‘Well, we knew you would react like that, so we were waiting for the right moment… and then you returned unexpectedly.’
‘Would there ever be the right moment? How long has this been going for?’
‘For three months secretly, and I introduced her to the grans yesterday,’ Mark avoided Dmitry’s judgemental gaze.
‘Three months, huh? Well, thank God that she didn’t start dating you immediately after I’d come out,’ Dmitry was less irritated than before, but still sufficiently vexed.
‘Dima, you have to understand… It’s not like she was too hung up on you or anything. She just happened to come to my gym once, and we hit it off. It was only after I’d told her I had a twin brother when she finally connected the dots. It was a real shock to her, trust me.’
‘Mark, I don’t care about her reasons or motivation – I’ll ask her that myself. I only want to know why you didn’t tell me considering that she’s my friend.’
‘You aren’t sharing much these days either, Dima,’ Mark looked at him at last. ‘Otherwise you would’ve told me who that bastard that played with your feelings is and where I can find him.’
‘There’s no bastard,’ Dmitry tried an unsuccessful lie.
‘Bullshit. Ulyana told me. There was a guy you were all excited about, but now you come home all miserable, and I don’t know what to think.’
‘Maybe he just turned out to be straight? You aren’t going to beat him to pulp just for that,’ Dmitry said nonchalantly.
‘Straight guys can play you too. You were the one who told me about those horror stories involving married men and whatnot. It probably doesn’t make them straight anymore, but I’ll leave the labels to you. The bottom line is – if a person is a jerk, he’s a jerk, gay, straight, whatever.’
‘That was awfully deep of you,’ Dmitry managed a giggle. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you everything before you jump to conclusions and then jump him.’
Dmitry told Mark about the principal, Egor, Valera, Andrey, the botched examinations, the weird obsession with sex, and his magic. Mark was listening attentively, his frown deepening with each new revelation. By the time Dmitry finished, he had been genuinely indignant.
‘Okay. Let’s go through this mess one by one. First of all, what the fuck.’
‘Yeah,’ Dmitry whispered.
‘That Egor guy. You’re telling me that you’re going to patch things up with him even after what he’s done?’
‘I mean, I provoked him. Granted, I didn’t expect him to bang the first girl he met in retaliation, but I can live with that.’
‘He’s a dick, but fine. Maybe you’re into that,’ Mark nudged Dmitry with his shoulder.
‘You’re a dick.’
‘Okay, next. Andrey. You say he was your friend, but I don’t remember anyone with that name.’
‘What?’ Dmitry almost fell from the bed. It was the first time Mark’s memories had not matched Dmitry’s.
‘There were Arthur and Kesha, but definitely no Andreys. Do YOU remember Arthur?’
‘Sure, but we stopped hanging out after the kindergarten since they went to different schools,’ Dmitry said confidently.
‘What? No!’ Mark was exceptionally dismissive of Dmitry’s claim. ‘Yeah, they went to different schools, but we remained friends up until middle school. Then you kissed Arthur, and everything fell apart. But I never blamed you for that. He’s probably a homophobic jerk now, so good riddance. I still text Kesha, though. I’d never out you to him, but he seems chill with gay people now.’
‘Umm,’ Dmitry was speechless. The world was fucked up. Somehow Dmitry existed in two realities – a reality where his first kiss was Andrey and a reality where his first kiss was Arthur, who he could barely recall, and both were true at the same time. He was not about to seek Arthur and ask him for confirmation, so he had to trust Mark’s word on that. The idea made him extremely uncomfortable.
‘Um, Mark,’ Dmitry’s hands were slightly shacking. ‘Did I ever brag to you about losing my virginity?’
‘No?’ Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘You only got into the dating business last summer, and it was an utter failure according to you. Or do you have something to confess to your little brother?’
He said that last sentence mischievously, a mirror reflection of Dmitry. It made him pissed, but at least his chastity was intact in the updated world.
‘Nah. And if I do, I’m not telling you anyway.’
‘Not fair. I told you everything, even when you didn’t want to hear it,’ Mark gave Dmitry a thumbs up. Dmitry was glad that his memories had not been tampered with.
‘So,’ Mark continued. ‘They may force you to have sex because it’s some kind of a magic ritual?’
‘I don’t know why they do it,’ Dmitry shrugged his shoulders. ‘They use it to consummate a pair’s relationship, but I don’t get the purpose of those pairs. The teachers look properly distraught, and they have a former sex worker attending to them. The system doesn’t sound functional.’
‘What will you do if they make you do it with a girl? I don’t imagine that it will go well with you.’
‘If it’s a one-time thing, I can probably close my eyes and think of Russia… Russian sun-burnt half-naked selo guys on a tractor,’ Dmitry said uncertainly. ‘But honestly, I don’t fucking know. I need the principal to give me the answers, but she’s been avoiding me. I could threaten them with explosive magic, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a magic prison.’
Mark looked at Dmitry wistfully, the freckles dancing on his shifting face.
‘It’s not too late to let me take your place. I suggested that before because I knew that something would be up. Having sex with some girl isn’t ideal, but I won’t suffer as much as you will.’
‘And how will you explain putting on that weight and muscles in a weekend?’ Dmitry laughed.
‘I’ll tell them that Baba made me eat all the pantry,’ Mark smirked. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t made you do that yet.’
‘Maybe witnessing me struggle with body disorders made her think twice before doing that,’ Dmitry said seriously. ‘I understand that her generation was traumatized with food shortage, but we’re in the 21st century, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Shhh,’ Mark put a finger to his mouth. ‘She could hear you. And she’s pretty upset about the situation. She had to give up her daughter to magic, and now you. Now she’s scared that if I have a child, they’ll suffer the same fate.’
‘Her daughter? You mean my… our mother?’ Dmitry asked incredulously.
‘Shit. My tongue will be the end of me,’ Mark mumbled and made a movement with his hand, causing Dmitry to doze.
***
Dmitry woke up deep in the evening, his memories hazy. He remembered talking to Mark and asking him about Baba, but the rest was shrouded in mist. His phone was lit up with messages from Ulyana, his online friends, and, surprisingly, Alla.
‘Have you broken it off with Egosha already? My friend is dying to meet you. How about tomorrow at the forbidden section of the Underground Loft?’
‘Maybe next weekend,’ Dmitry typed lazily. ‘I don’t feel well, and the things with Egor aren’t set in stone.’
‘Alright, but he won’t be waiting forever. Next Sunday or bust. He is rather passionate about your freckles btw. Wonders if there are any on your ass.’
‘I wonder if he has any ass at all.’
‘Damn…’
Dmitry did not read the rest and simply stared at the ceiling, awaiting a new wave of drowsiness. He did not care for Alla’s guy much, and he had a feeling that they would not be a good match. He wanted to find someone on his own terms, without match-makers or other middlemen. But what were his prospects, really? And how would a potential suitor react to him being a mage? Many people did not understand them, and that was the best-case scenario. Some weirdos worshipped magic and treated mages as deities, but they were on the margins of the society. Dissatisfaction with mages was more widespread despite their contributions to the common good. The only form of warfare had been reduced to the magic one as the nuclear weapon was deemed too dangerous. The more powerful your mages were, the more powerful you were as a country, but the trick was that no one was willing to disclose the real power of their mages, and espionage yielded little result. Occasionally an escaped mage would reveal some classified date to never resurface, and Russia was apparently somewhere in the middle due to literal witch hunts in the Soviet era. Perhaps that lack of power was the reason they had put such high hopes on him, but Dmitry wanted none of that. And did they seriously believe that he would fight for the country that refused to give him a semblance of rights? Once Dmitry had a proper hold of his abilities, they would face a rude awakening.
***
Dmitry’s Sunday was not especially eventful. He talked it out with Ulyana, who reassured him that their friendship had nothing to do with Mark and that even if they broke up, she would remain Dmitry’s friend. His online friends had made no progress in believing him, and he had to block some of them. One ‘friend’ even wrote that he would rather believe that Dmitry had got laid. Dmitry was in a desperate need of real friends, and his mind painted Andrey’s forlorn silhouette. He had not decided what to do about him. There were too many unpredictable variables, and Dmitry’s analysis was inconclusive without them. Mark’s comment had added more tar to the barrel of honey. Had the rewriting process been flawed, or did Andrey possess the talent to evade it? Would he be honest if Dmitry asked? Or could Mark have fucked with Dmitry’s head, sowing all those seeds of doubt? But to what end? Was his thing with Ulyana serious or a scheme to control more of Dmitry’s life? Too many questions when all Dmitry wanted was a taste of love.
Dmitry packed food, drinks and clothes for the week and added some bathing items to the heap. The bag could not contain everything, and Dmitry employed another bag, which was more in line with straightness. Dmitry vowed to throw it at Andrey the next time he saw him. He had let him plant bullshit into his head, and he would have to pay. There was just one more thing Dmitry might need.
Dmitry barged into Mark’s room uninvited while his brother was in the middle of doing a run in some co-op game. Following his appearance, he had asked Dmitry to join on several occasions and only met rejection. Dmitry was all about single-player games, and the homophobic rant coming out of the speakers only hardened his resolve to stick to them. Mark left the instance and turned to Dmitry, his face rosy.
‘A friend of yours?’ Dmitry asked in a non-nonsense way.
‘Nope. I was about to shut him up, but then you showed up.’
‘Sure,’ Dmitry’s disappointment was palpable.
‘Dima, really? You think I wouldn’t defend you?’
‘Well, he wasn’t attacking me personally, right? So why would you defend gay people in general? Hell, even I wouldn’t sometimes.’
‘Dima…’
‘Whatever. I need a favour to ask,’ Dmitry dismissed him with wrist gesture.
‘Okay. What do you want?’ Mark looked hurt, but Dmitry had no tolerance for lazy allyship.
‘I need… um… um… condoms,’ Dmitry finally managed after some hesitation.
‘Oh my God,’ Mark exhaled in awe. ‘Okay, how many?’
‘I have no fucking clue. 5, maybe?’ Dmitry’s face flushed.
‘Are you going to have sex every day? That’s hardcore,’ Mark nodded approvingly.
‘Shut it. I’m not going to have anything. I need to be prepared for all scenarios. They might’ve set me up with a girl while I was away,’ Dmitry mumbled to the wall.
‘You need just one for a girl. Something’s up,’ Mark mused.
‘None of your business,’ Dmitry said sharply. ‘You either give them to me, or I… Fuck it, just give me one.’
‘You can always buy them yourself,’ Mark smirked. ‘Every man goes through this initiation.’
‘First of all, I have no money of my own, and I’m absolutely not asking Baba.’
‘She would understand,’ Mark made innocent eyes, and they somehow suit him.
‘No. And even if I had money, no way in hell I’m going to the pharmacy. That lady’s known me since I was a baby.’
‘There are tons of pharmacies around here. I go to a different one each time. Gives them an illusion that I’m not a sex addict,’ Mark winked at Dmitry.
‘Ew. So, are you giving me anything or not?’ Dmitry sounded more desperate with each roadblock.
‘One more question. What if the guy has condoms of his own? And he’ll use it on his cock and do you know what to you?’ Mark remarked astutely.
Dmitry had considered the possibility. With Egor, it was probably the only available way, although Dmitry had not ruled out non-piercing activities. He actually desired them more than anything. But Dmitry’s problem was that other men might want that very thing, and they would want it in a specific way that ignored Dmitry’s wishes. Thus, he had to be ready to lie or stand there and let the hormones do their thing.
‘I guess I’ll let him,’ Dmitry admitted. ‘Sex is sex. I’ll feel pleasure either way.’
‘Spoken like a true virgin,’ Mark snorted.
Dmitry fought the urge to kick Mark in the balls because the promise of nephews, nieces, or other niblings was tempting.
‘What do you suggest, then” Dmitry asked hotly.
‘Tell him exactly what you want and how you want to go about it. If he refuses, then be all defeatist about it. If he doesn’t… enjoy the night of your life.’
‘You know an awful lot about how gay people go about it,’ Dmitry remarked shrewdly. ‘Even I don’t know that much.’
‘I’m just saying how people regardless of their sexuality should go about it. And I know you’re sceptical about straight sex, but we have to communicate too. Ulyana wanted to try some ‘unconventional’ things, I wanted to try some things. We worked it out.’
‘I wish my magic could wipe out memories because I definitely didn’t want to hear all that,’ Dmitry cringed.
Mark sniggered and went to open his sticker-ridden cupboard. Seconds later he was back with a pack of around 10 condoms. Dmitry shielded his face from the sight.
‘Take them. And tell me in advance if you need more,’ Mark’s face was suddenly determined. ‘I know I haven’t been a good support lately, pardon my gamer speak. That school sounds like hell, and nothing I say will nullify the damage it’s done to you already, but I hope that this counts for something.’
For some reason, Dmitry felt like hugging his twin, but he was still aggravated with him, so he muttered a thanks and took the load. If his grandparents saw him with those, he would be dead. Either of embarrassment or due to his grandfather’s fist. They were not ‘the sex after marriage’ type because both had had an extensive dating history before meeting each other, but they were not the ‘sex whenever you feel like it’ type either.
‘I hope that your Prince Charming will give you exactly what you want. You’re worth it,’ Mark said with feigned solemnity.
‘I hope that you and Ulyana will make it work for a long time too. She’s worth it,’ Dmitry returned the quip with the first genuine smile in a while.
There was a knock at the door at around 6 am as Dmitry was lying on the bed in a dead-like trance, his thoughts scrambled, entangled, and deprived of any particular meaning. He had to change again, but his brain refused to command the body, letting it stink helplessly. There was another knock, and Dmitry began recognizing the room as not his own but as something foreign.
A faint ‘Dima, it’s time to go’ made Dmitry abruptly start and remember that he was supposed to be returning home. Home. He had been away from home for a prolonged period of time on at least three occasions: the summer camp training the actual summer camp internship, and the psychiatric hospital. All those experiences had been forced upon him, and the recent school one was not an exception. While the camp internship might have had some usefulness as far as preparing Dmitry for dealing with children was concerned, the hospital had been a waste of time. And an exercise in not exposing oneself. Both the school and the university had been relatively easy because they had occupied only a fraction of Dmitry’s life. The hospital had been 24/7, surrounded by men of various degrees of attractiveness. If they had put Dmitry into a single-person ward as had been decided originally, he could have had smooth sailing. But the last minute change had relocated him into a ward with two guys, one of which rather stood out among the drabs. Dmitry did not even remember his name, but his brown eyes, chiselled physique, and an impressive behind were surely immortalized in Dmitry’s memory. He remembered wanting all of that to himself, to taste his skin, to make his sturdy back arch, to pull at the mop of dirty blond hair. Watching him undress every single night had been unbearable, as had been answering his innocent questions as to why Dmitry had never undressed and slept in either a T-shirt or a shirt without even taking off his trousers. Telling him the truth would have ruined everything, although Dmitry had not been daunted by potential gay bashing. The test that had confined Dmitry to the hospital had been tricky. Dmitry had planned to shirk the ‘manly’ duty of serving in the army by eventually agreeing to undergo the alternative service or by quickly finding a school to teach at as the job guaranteed an exemption, but the mandatory testing procedure had ruined his plans as the damn paper had found something ‘unusual’ about Dmitry. He had refused to be admitted to the hospital at first, but they had left him no choice during the second examination. However, Dmitry had hardly been the only victim of the testing, or the only gay victim. During some nights Dmitry could hear loud and unapologetic moaning coming from one of the wards on their floor, which had belonged to more than person. There had been guys who had deluded themselves into thinking that it had been one of the nurses who had agreed to comfort the ‘poor boys’, but Dmitry had watched too much porn not to recognize their owners. And one particular guy, a scrawny thing shorter than Dmitry with the promise of cuteness if not for his permanent expression of fright and alarm, had basically lived in the shower room. Could Dmitry have joined the fun? Probably not, he thought bitterly. A guy of his build and certain prettiness could have joined only under the stipulation that he would service everyone and let them plough him. The idea that Dmitry would want to be the one to do the ploughing could not have occurred to anyone. And so he had kept to himself. The novelty of the dreamy guy had worn off, and Dmitry had eventually mustered the courage to change in front of him, and the world had not exploded. On the final day of the ordeal, when Dmitry had been given the verdict of some personality disorder that would prevent him from serving in the army and potentially working as a teacher as well, the guy had approached him at the deserted bus station and told Dmitry something along the lines of ‘he was cute, but he had a boyfriend already, and remaining faithful to him with Dmitry in the same ward had been a strife, but he was glad it was over.’ Dmitry’s jaw had dropped and had not returned to the original position until reaching home. Had he regretted not making a move? No, because being the other man had not been on his agenda. Had he regretted not simply trying to connect with guy, making friends, and learning about his experience? Probably. And Andrey was about to become another regret in the book. He might claim to love him, but it did not mean that he had not had a fulfilling dating life. Their kiss had been the first and last for Dmitry, but that was not necessarily the case for Andrey. Although Dmitry struggled with viewing him with the gay gaze due to the phantoms of the past, he was handsome enough. But his involvement with the principal bothered Dmitry too much to be distracted by the candy. The strategy would be ready after the weekend, and Dmitry still needed to interact with him for the short time before boarding the train. And his mind, half-horny and half-frightened, had devised a preposterous plan.
The knocks continued, and Dmitry relented, allowing Andrey to enter with a cheerful ‘come in.’ Andrey opened the door and gasped.
‘Jesus, Dima, what are you doing?’
‘Changing,’ Dmitry answered innocently while pulling down his spoiled underwear, a fire of mischief playing in his eyes.
‘You could’ve warned me,’ there was horror on Andrey’s face as he swiftly slammed the door shut behind him. Yet Dmitry could see some pink of shame as well.
‘We’re both guys, so what’s the big deal?’ Dmitry shrugged his shoulders and started putting on a fresh pair very slowly.
‘Well, your deal is pretty big alright…,’ Andrey chocked out nervously. ‘Tell me when you’re finished.’
Andrey turned around, trying to hide whatever emotion was showing on his face, but his protruding ears betrayed him.
‘We used to see each other naked all the time,’ Dmitry smirked at Andrey’s back.
‘Dima, I know you’re doing this purpose, but please… You know how I feel about you. This isn’t helping.’
‘Feel what exactly? I need you to be more specific,’ Dmitry was behind Andrey, his mouth almost touching his ear.
‘If we’re late, you’ll stay here for the weekend, and no amount of pleading will save you,’ Andrey warned Dmitry, his ears the darkest shade of vermillion.
‘Even if I beg you on my knees?’ Dmitry’s breath was closer and closer.
‘What happened to being friends first?’ Andrey snapped and turned to Dmitry, who was fully clothed, a bag hanging from his shoulder.
‘I can’t be on my knees in a non-sexual way? Get your mind out of the gutter, Andrey,’ Dmitry managed an incredulous expression.
‘You little… What was that for?’ Andrey crossed his arms and scowled, the redness slowly vanishing from his face.
‘As you could see, I’m far from little,’ Dmitry pouted. ‘And I just wanted to test something. The results will be announced on Monday.’
‘You aren’t a teacher yet, Dima, so don’t use this language with me,’ Andrey blurted out, belatedly realizing that he should not have.
‘Huh. Another thing you know that I haven’t told you,’ it was Dmitry’s turn to cross his arms. ‘But whatever. Lead the way.’
‘Dima…,’ Andrey sighed and obeyed.
There was no conversation between them as they were going downstairs to the lobby. Dmitry went to collect his parka from the cloakroom and change into his shoes. While he was busy adjusting his scarf and Andrey was busy watching Dmitry, Egor appeared in the lobby, his eyes red and half-open and his movements languid. Dmitry’s mouth made an O of surprise upon seeing him, and he scampered to the guy with trepidation.
‘So I heard you’d be going out for the weekend,’ Egor said while rubbing his eyes and suppressing the urge to yawn each word.
‘Yeah,’ Dmitry nodded.
‘Erm… once you come back, could we… talk?’ Egor shuffled his feet.
‘Yeah.’
‘You… aren’t mad at me?’
‘No. We do need to talk. Even if I’m not going to like what you’ve got to say,’ Dmitry’s green met Egor’s clouded blue.
‘Okay. Okay. Then, see you. Stay safe,’ Egor averted his gaze, his cheeks ruby.
‘Back at you,’ Dmitry spread his lips suggestively, making Egor hastily retreat.
Once his back was gone, Dmitry caught a glimpse of Andrey's jealousy-striken face. His teeth were visibly gritting against one another, and his eyes were speaking of murder. Dmitry quietly scoffed at the sight and headed to the stairs without waiting for Andrey to return to normal. Dmitry’s departing figure seemingly snapped Andrey back to life, and he followed him like a guard dog. At the base of the stairs, he offered his hand, but Dmitry looked at him as if he had been offering his hand in marriage and kept walking. The abandoned station was the same as Dmitry remembered it, with the same ominous cross and giant lamps. The train was nowhere to be seen, and Dmitry cursed at no one in particular.
‘Dima,’ Dmitry heard Andrey’s hoarse voice from behind. ‘What were you talking about with that manwhore?’
Dmitry turned to him with a haughty expression.
‘Tell me why you looked so happy at the crone’s office yesterday, and I might consider answering this.’
‘What crone?’ Andrey sounded genuinely confused. ‘Oh. Tatyana Vladimorovna. Well, it’s not nice to talk about women like that, Dima.’
‘It’s not nice for the said woman to out me in front of the whole school and then act all innocent and holy,’ Dmitry snapped back.
‘Dima, she wouldn’t…,’ Andrey looked shaken. ‘I can vouch for her. Someone else must’ve outed you. Probably one of your so-called friends.’
He almost spit venom while mentioning Dmitry’s table friends, which Dmitry found suspicious, but Andrey had too many mysteries to uncover later.
‘Maybe. Though I don’t see any incentives for them to do that. While the principal could’ve done that to pretend to be a caring mother and lead me into a trap.’
‘Dima... I don’t know how to say this not to offend you, but….’
‘But what? Come on, say it. Because I almost thought that you were free from that masc privilege nonsense, but the world always find a way to let me down,’ Dmitry barked.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but… is it really far-fetched to think that you’re gay? I’m not saying that you’re flamboyant or anything… it’s just… you give off the vibes, you know?’ Andrey stumbled through his speech.
‘Wow,’ Dmitry gasped theatrically. ‘Do my freckles spell out gay or something?’
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Andrey shook his head vehemently. ‘You’re pretty, you take care of yourself, and you have this bag… Straight guys prefer backpacks.’
‘Poor straight and bi women, all boys who are pretty and trimmed are gay, only ugly ones are left for them,’ Dmitry guffawed. ‘Please. And no one saw me with this bag except for Egor, Valera, you, and, surprise, the principal. The plot thickens.’
‘Dima…,’ Andrey whispered.
‘I think I’ve heard enough. Just a tip – if you want to salvage this non-relationship, I’d suggest reconsidering what you’ve just told me. And between two of us, you’re the one who actually fucked a guy, so who’s gayer now?’
‘How… what the hell, Dima,’ Andrey’s shocked physiognomy gave Dmitry a strange surge of satisfaction.
‘Just a hunch,’ Dmitry smirked. ‘But thanks for confirming it. Oh, here’s my carriage. Gotta return to my gay abode to recharge the vibes because the straightness of the school was killing them.’
‘Dima, I’m sorry,’ there was despair in Andrey’s voice. ‘You know that I don’t care about all that. I just… wanted to be real with you.’
Dmitry regarded him coldly and stepped closer to the edge of the platform while waiting for the train to stop and open the doors. Andrey’s ‘realness’ stung, and Dmitry refused to entertain the possibility that some of it might be true. He had survived a lot, and no one had given him shit for years. Could they have known but opted not to mention it or ask invasive questions? Possibly. Such a scenario would have been perfect. But the lyceum people had already asked him questions, had already called him a HIV-infested pest. Something was fishy, and Dmitry would have to get to the bottom of that. He only wished that the bottom in question would not be Valera or Egor also known as the other two people who had some insight into Dmitry’s situation.
‘Your real is already this country’s real. Maybe all I want is just some fantasy,’ Dmitry finally said and entered the still train.
‘I’ll tell you what we discussed with the principal. Don’t give up on me. Please return safely,’ Andrey shouted as the door and whatever access he had to Dmitry’s heart were closing.
***
The barely existing Siberian sun shone at Dmitry’s face as he walked out of the metro’s entrance and walked into the yard of the same house it was built into. His house was an old Soviet thing erected around the time of Stalin’s mourning. The greyish brick emanated melancholy, and the tall windows silently welcomed Dmitry back. His brandished his keychain with a catboy from Loveless and a Slavic-coded character from a certain successful game and unlocked the door. He quickly threw it into the depths of the bag as he noticed an old man coming out of the elevator, his grey beard flailing back and forth.
‘Back from that boarding school, yea, Dima?’ he boomed at Dmitry.
‘Yes,’ Dmitry replied with a bit of a force himself to match the man’s voice.
‘You youngsters are so studious these days, heh. I only needed seven grades to become a man,’ he man stroked his beard pensively. ‘But you aren’t only studying but teaching as well, correct?’
Dmitry did not know what story his grandmother had weaved about his circumstances, but he found himself nodding.
‘Well then. Don’t find yourself in love with some gorgeous girl student, heh,’ the man smacked his lips and ambled towards the exit.
Dmitry gave his back a look of scorn and went into the elevator. He pressed the button with number 7 and waited for the device to take him to the highest floor. Once he was there, Dmitry scoured the bag for the keychain, but to no avail. Resigned, Dmitry pressed the doorbell. At first, there was nothing, not a stir behind the door. Dmitry pressed it again, fully aware that at least one person should be at home because it was seven in the morning. Then he heard a click of a lock, and the last person he expected to see opened the door for him.
‘Ulyana? What are you doing here?’ Dmitry raised his eyebrows at the presence of his friend.
‘Well,’ Ulyana looked lost. ‘Mark told me that you were coming home today, and we decided to throw a homecoming… uhm… tea party for you?’
Ulyana had obviously dressed herself in a hurry, and it did not require a detective to surmise that she had spent a night at his place and that there was only one possible person she could have spent it with. And as if on cue, his brother’s voice leaked out of his room.
‘Ulya, who’s that? Tell them to fuck off,’ his annoyed tone was infuriatingly the same as Dmitry’s.
‘Should I tell Dima to fuck off too?’ she asked him condescendingly.
‘What??? Shit,’ Mark cursed, and some sort of commotion occurred in the room, resulting in Mark appearing in the hall in person, still bare-chested but with his underwear intact. At times Dmitry envied how toned his brother, his creation, was and how the freckles worked on his body unlike Dmitry’s but on that occasion he could only think about the implications of their mésalliance.
‘Dima, whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong. I can explain,’ Mark stretched his arms pleadingly.
Without further words, Dmitry stepped over the threshold, took off his shoes, hurriedly put the hat and the scarf on the shelf, almost threw the parka at Mark and menacingly swung the bag at Ulyana, although it was only an accident.
‘You’re mad,’ she said in an obvious tone.
Dmitry stuck to the silent treatment and marched to his room, slamming the door as loudly as possible, potentially waking up his grandparents. There was some wetness in his eyes, which he removed in one swipe.
Ulyana had been his trusted friend for 6 months and a sort-of friend for whooping 4 years. He had never sensed any regret coming from her, and he was certain that she had a boyfriend, which she had not introduced to Dmitry because she had believed he would judge her taste in men. Dmitry had not paid much attention to the fact in the pre-Mark world, but everything made too much sense with his twin around. Perhaps, in the previous world, her boyfriend has resembled Dmitry, giving Ulyana a valid reason not to share much, although Dmitry found himself not caring whether the guy had looked like him. Everyone had a type, Dmitry too. He would have thrown himself at Egor’s look-a-like in a heartbeat. But what Ulyana had done in the renewed reality was different. Dmitry had rejected her, so she had chosen the straight version of him. Had their friendship been only a means to get closer to Mark, provided that for her he had existed for much longer than for Dmitry? He did not know what to make of everything. Mark’s silence also hurt, surprisingly. He had not expected the clone to be entirely honest as he was his own person, but Ulyana… Out of all outcomes, it was officially the worst one, and Dmitry could only hit the desk with his fist in helpless anger.
There were hushed whispers in the hall, a disgruntled voice that could only belong to his belligerent grandfather, and his grandmother’s diplomatic imploring. After some time Ulyana had apparently left, and someone knocked at his door.
‘Dima, it’s me. Breakfast’s ready,’ his grandma said.
‘I’ll have it later, Baba. I’m going to take a bath in an hour, tell them not to occupy it,’ Dmitry replied.
‘I don’t like it when you lock the door. I want to see you,’ she said with almost a sob.
‘I’ll be out soon. Just need… some time for myself, okay?’
‘Okay. And don’t be mad at your brother. I understand what you could be feeling, but love is love. We can’t control it.’
Dmitry wanted to scream that all he did was controlling his love, but he did not want to let it out on her considering everything, so he just grunted something affirmative in response and opened one of the drawers containing white tissues. He could control his love, but some urges were beyond his control, and he had not done anything in days. Dmitry let one of Minako Honda’s compilation albums play in the background to fool the rest of family, even if they could still suspect something, and began looking for inspiration. On a typical day a swimming anime doujinshi would do, but he had been surrounded by good-looking men, some of which were interested in him, so something stronger was more welcome. Dmitry opened his secret bookmarks that he had been saving in a password-locked file rather than the browser’s settings, and his eye immediately fell on a link with the description of ‘a solo blondie guy that looks like a character from a popular zombie game’. Dmitry inserted the link into the box and checked the page. His description was accurate, and the guy looked a bit like Valera, which was a nice bonus. He knew they would never be a thing in real life, but in his fantasies…
One release, no matter how sweet, was not enough, so Dmitry was prompted to find something else to satiate his body. Another video’s description stated that it was about ‘cute guy topping his large boyfriend’. Once again, Dmitry’s initial assessment was proven to be correct with a twinky guy hanging over a tall guy, and the rest was history. Dmitry did not usually care about who did what in porn, but plots like that were affirming for his non-experience, giving him a sliver of hope that someday he would have something similar. Maybe not with Egor, but with someone else. Still, the image of Egor under him was very tempting, and whatever the video was showing had been overshadowed by Dmitry’s imagination.
***
After Dmitry’s lust and tissues had been accounted for, he went to the bathroom to start filling the bath-tube with water. His grandfather greeted him with his usual expression of masculine apathy and remarked that Dmitry was getting too skinny. Dmitry wished him a curt good morning and went back to business. He removed his skincare products from the bag and put them on the stand next to the bath. Leaving them in the open had always been a threat, so Dmitry had got accustomed to carrying them with him or hiding them in his room. The same went for his shampoo and shower gel, which might have been selected with more attention that an average guy would have given them. Dmitry did have a shaving razor and aftershave on full display in the bathroom, which were as manly as one could possibly get, although Dmitry’s grandfather had repeatedly insinuated that real men used a shaving machine. Dmitry hated to think that there was a point to Andrey’s words, but what if he had just deluded himself into thinking that he had been straight passing? In that case, he did not have to hide some parts of himself anymore. But what if Andrey was wrong? He had to ask someone, but any answer would crush him. When Dmitry left the bathroom to spend the remaining time in his room, Mark was at his door, his emerald eyes signalling an admission of guilt.
‘Dima, I’m sorry,’ he said ardently.
Dmitry ignored him and reached for his wardrobe to collect some fresh clothes. A My Bloody Valentine T-shirt seemed like a perfect fit for the occasion.
‘Dima, talk to me, I can’t function like this,’ he entreated with Dmitry again.
‘I’m going to take a bath and clean myself of all the filth. We might talk after,’ Dmitry promised perfunctorily and closed the door.
Alla’s words were still ringing in Dmitry’s head as he was making his way to the library. His memories were rewritten? It was a ridiculous notion. He remembered everything that had happened before Mark and everything that had happened after his appearance. There were no gaps in his memories, no sense of missing out, no inconsistencies.
And he certainly did not wish for his memories to be altered during the instance of the magic. Alla maintained that his memories could have been tampered with in the same way the memories of others had been, though Dmitry retorted with the fact that he was still aware of Mark’s true nature. They continued arguing until Alla relented, but Dmitry was convinced that she still believed in her preposterous theory. Some part of Dmitry reluctantly accepted that Alla might have a point, being a specialist in rewriting things. No one had given Dmitry a proper answer, and Alla at least tried, although Dmitry still could not fathom why his memories even mattered. So what if they had been rewritten? The outcome was the same – being stuck in some crazy sex school. Oh, how he would like to rewrite that. Or the fact that Egor had slept with the nurse. Dmitry had shared his ‘affection’ for the guy with Alla, but she only scoffed at his silly crush.
‘I have eyes, and something was definitely brewing between you two. But he doesn’t seem like a good match for you. You’re too innocent, Dimochka, and he’ll break your heart with no remorse,’ she said after having smoked the third cigarette of the conversation.
‘Am I really innocent?’ Dmitry asked with a tangible affront in his voice. ‘I might be a virgin, but I’ve seen everything there is to see, and my online friends were very good at oversharing. I swear – when the real thing happens, I’m very likely to be disappointed.’
‘I don’t virgin-shame, darling,’ Alla was no less offended by the implication. ‘Do you know how many men came to me just to lose their virginity due to some peer pressure? And then they put pressure on me because I was their first and I had to ensure that they would leave in a state of bliss and self-fulfilment. A miserable experience. I know I should be jagged after everything I’ve been through, but no, I still believe in saving yourself for the right. Not in the religious sense, ew. But it should be with the right person.’
Dmitry flushed at the mention of Alla’s previous occupation, although he saw no shame in it. There were things Alla was not telling about herself, and it was fine as they were not that close yet. But Alla did hint at the fact that she had worked pre-transition with gay gays as her clients. She felt as if she had been deceiving them and herself, but they had been after her body, and she had considered it a separate entity.
‘I don’t know if that came with the trade or my dysphoria,’ Alla admitted. ‘I just stopped associating myself with my body. It took years for me to unlearn it and love myself completely.’
‘Listening to your makes me feel like my image problems are insignificant, and maybe they are. Dissociating from myself sounds… agonizing,’ Dmitry said quietly and cautiously, trying not to aggravate Alla.
Alla regarded him with amusement on her fresh face, a lollipop in her mouth.
‘It’s not oppression Olympics, Dimka. I’m well aware of the standards in the gay community, and I’m glad they have nothing to do with me anymore. I just have to worry about good old misogyny now.’
‘Out of the frying pan into the fire,’ Dmitry mumbled to himself, but Alla managed to catch it.
‘Well said. Cheers!’ she poured herself a shot of vodka, put the lollipop into the glass to stir the drink, and clanked it with Dmitry’s glass of juice. He felt like a child.
‘This is what I call innocent, Dima,’ Alla pointed her manicured finger at his choice of a drink. ‘And this is a good kind of innocent. Enjoy it while it lasts. Which is probably until Katya’s next party, where she will force you to drink beer or something.’
‘Why is he not good for me?’ Dmitry did not like the way the conversation had veered into and tried to right the course.
‘Aside from the fact that he can’t keep it in his pants? I don’t know. You tell me. Tell me what puts you off in him.’
Dmitry thought about it carefully. Egor might be hot, but the red flags were all over the place, putting a billow over his nice appearance.
‘Well, he was weird about me being gay,’ Dmitry counted with his fingers. ‘He was willing to accept a blowjob from a stranger. And he said something about pronouns in a pretty ugly tone.’
‘Wow, he knows about pronouns?’ she said teasingly, her eyes having a strange gleam about them. 'Very progressive.'
'Not really,' Dmitry shugs. 'Bigots know about them too and won't shut up.'
Alla flung herself from the table on which she had been half-lying and approached Dmitry while looking straight into his eyes.
'So, you're scared that he's a bigot?' she asked seriously, and Dmitry nodded.
'In that case, fuck him, and I'll ask Katya not to invite him to our parties anymore.'
'But...,' Dmitry said faintly, avoiding looking at Alla directly. His hesitation was noted.
'But what, honey?' Alla's tone was not unkind.
'What if he's just awkward about all of it? Like Valera? I don't want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but... I thought there was... some chemistry,' Dmitry fought the urge to gnaw on his fingers. 'I don't know how to explain it, but I felt something that makes me believe he's not that bad.'
Alla gave him a meaningful look and another puff to her cigarette. Dmitry was aware that he might be betraying some part of his community because of a pair of blue eyes, and he did not want Alla to judge him. Surprisingly, Alla smiled after accepting another dose of nicotine into her body.
‘Then talk to him. Tell him what’s bothering you. Tell him how you feel about him. Yes, it will hurt a lot if your worst fears are confirmed and if your feelings aren’t reciprocated. But at least you’ll know what he’s about and move on. I already have someone in mind for you.’
Although Alla’s words were far from reassuring and only promised more pain, Dmitry managed a grin.
‘And who could that be?’ he asked skittishly.
‘That’s a secret for now. Get back to me after you sort that thing out.’
‘If it’s some guy who specializes in eating virgins, I’ll pass,’ Dmitry said half-seriously.
‘No. But I’ll say no more. I respect my friends’ privacy, and the same goes for you,’ Alla quenched the cigarette before it could spell another unsightly truth. ‘Let me teleport you out of here.’
Alla had been mindful of Dmitry’s busy plans, and he ended up in the hallway which would lead him to the library and other facilities. Both the memory issue and Egor were heavy on his mind, and books could be to be the much needed distraction. Once he entered a room that looked bookish enough, he spotted a young woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a headscarf covering most of her hair. There was some sorrow in her eyes, as if she had been grieving, and Dmitry did not want to impose on her. But the woman spotted him as well, and her emotions had been replaced with business.
‘A new student, I presume?’ her voice was husky and matter-of-fact.
‘Yes. Dmitry Angarskiy.’
‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said with a hint of displeasure. ‘But I’m a mere librarian, so what you do and who you are is none of my business as long as you remain quiet within these walls.’
Dmitry could sense that there was something more to the librarian’s demeanour, but his curiosity about his magic outweighed his curiosity about the woman, and it was very likely that she had heard of him being gay, which could explain her passive aggressiveness. Still, he required her assistance to find the right books, so he boldly marched to the counter.
‘Could you help me find…,’ Dmitry managed to say before being cut off.
‘We have the technology here,’ the librarian extended her arm towards a surprisingly modern-looking laptop with a rather big screen and a highlighted keyboard. ‘Open the search app – it will help you find everything you need.’
Dmitry was used to the approach from the university library, but he had expected the magic school to be more… conservative and Luddite, so the librarian’s attitude was mildly surprising. He looked at the laptop suspiciously, as if it was a magical illusion that would disperse upon his touch.
‘Thank you, but I’d like to hear your reco-….’
‘The computer,’ the librarian insisted again. ‘There’s a special tab for beginners. Use it.’
Dmitry sighed. If he had been in her position, he would have probably behaved the same, although as a would-be teacher, he would have been more diplomatic, and the librarian was far from it, her bespectacled gaze mentally pulverizing him.
‘Fine. However, I’m not familiar with the proper termi-….’
‘The tab. It has everything,’ the librarian almost barked at Dmitry.
‘Great service,’ Dmitry uttered through his teeth and separated his deadened legs from each other to make a move towards the laptop when the librarian gave him a look full of scorn and hissed:
‘Can’t take a hint, you HIV-ridden fa-?’
‘Excuse me?’ Dmitry’s voice was more even than ever, although no one had dared to call him that straight to his face. Not that he was unprepared to defend himself.
‘Eduard was like a father to me. His son deserted him, and he took care of me instead. He allowed me to work here! To think that the likes of you could hurt him! It makes me physically sick! Tatyana Vladimorovna has no fucking shame letting you stay here and shielding you from the police!’ the librarian’s voice above all the acceptable levels of volume in her establishment. ‘Just wait until I get a day off and go to them directly.’
She smiled predatorily at Dmitry, and he did shiver, which was more due to the person who had entered the library during the librarian’s rant than her empty threats.
‘Anna Petrovna, you are so loud I could hear you in my office,’ the aforementioned Tatyana said, her smile an apex predator compared to the librarian’s.
‘Tatyana Vladimirovna, I- I’m so sorry,’ Anna Petrovna’s voice immediately rose several pitches higher.
The principal seemed unimpressed by her apology and approached Dmitry, her arms spread as if to hug him. Dmitry diffidently accepted her gaudy display of affection.
‘You see, Anna Petrovna, Dmitry is a special student of ours,’ she said while patting Dmitry’s head, his expression a battle with queasiness. ‘He is different from us in many ways, but different does not mean bad. We should celebrate it.’
Suddenly, Tatyana Vladimirovna dropped her voice while still playing a motherly role to Dmitry.
‘In other words, Anya, if you tattle anything to anyone, I will fire and send you to the frontlines. And since it is your word against mine, no one will believe you, and your pathetic life will be rendered entirely meaningless. Is it worth it?’
Anna Petrovna’s face went pale, and there was a hint of sheer fear and disbelief. She nervously adjusted her glasses and faced the principal, as if she still had some kind of leverage against her.
‘You… you wouldn’t. Eduard….’
‘Cannot help you anymore,’ the principal finished icily.
‘He’s your husband! How could you? Over this… this sodomite!’ the librarian’s expression was frantic, and her hands seemed ready to grab Dmitry and strangle him.
‘Anya,’ the principal said with a conspicuous warning in her voice.
The librarian kept glaring at Dmitry, yet ultimately said and did nothing. She returned to the other side of the counter and pretended to work by writing something into a bulky copybook. Meanwhile, the principal gave Dmitry’s shoulder a pat, beamed at him for more assurance, and scanned the counter.
‘You did not even give the poor boy his library card. How was he supposed to do anything without it?’ she reprimanded the bespectacled woman.
The librarian clicked her tongue in what could be interpreted as annoyance and handed Dmitry, who had drawn closer, his card. He looked at it in distrust as he did not remember taking any photos of himself recently. Shockingly, the picture looked nice enough for something meant for a document: it was in colour, slightly airbrushed to hide the blemishes (or it could be make-up, Dmitry could not tell), and his expression was peaceful, adding some life to the photo. There was a stark contrast between it and his ID photo, which had been taken for his 20th birthday, when a citizen was supposed to update his ID. In that one Dmitry looked more awkward, more flawed, more… adulterated. The less he had to show his ID, the better.
‘I don’t remember posing for this photo,’ Dmitry thought aloud.
‘Our trade secret, darling,’ the principal said merrily, and her merriment was submerged in strictness.
Dmitry thanked her and sat at the desk, his fingers on the keyboard and the touchpad. The principal watched him work for some time, reminded him of the evening rendezvous, and left the library. Anna Petrovna was in her own world where Eduard retained his ability to speak and was able to tell her what a good girl she was after having thoroughly explored her body.
***
The ‘technology’ yielded Dmitry only three books, but he did not complain as they seemed fundamental and voluminous. The books were ‘The Concise Introduction to Magic’, where the word concise was false advertisement, ‘The Art of Conjuration and Creation’, which could be useful, though Dmitry was not completely sure about the difference between the two, and ‘Movement Magic for Dummies’, which appeared promising despite the disparaging title. Under more grounded circumstances Dmitry would have scoffed at the titles and the popular science genre, but he was a zilch in magic unless he needed to kill someone, and beggars could not be choosers. After having the books checked out at the counter (the librarian’s hostility had permanently polluted the air), DmFitry went to grab a bite at the canteen. Only Egor was predictably present from the clique, and while it would be a good opportunity to have a heart-to-heart, Dmitry was so hungry that even the sharpness of Egor’s face was not distracting for once. He quickly consumed the soup, the main dish consisting of mashed potatoes and a meagre stripe of goulash, and gulped down the sugarless tea. He might have had some juice and chocolate at Alla’s, but they were nothing to Dmitry’s black hole of the stomach. Dmitry could not help noticing that Egor was stealing glances at him, which gave him a twisted semblance of hope that things could be fine between them. Even if Egor did not reciprocate his feelings, they would remain friends, probably. It would be impossible to kill the attraction, but Egor was not the first and would not be the last guy Dmitry had had to neuter his feelings for. A friend would be nice. Andrey’s reappearance had brought more questions than answers, and what Dmitry had said about starting from scratch was a nothing but a delay tactic before he could formulate a solid plan regarding him. The weekend was guaranteed to be busy.
Feeling full and energized, Dmitry went to search for Valera’s room, which was a challenge to find as it happened to be on a different floor. There were no numbers on the doors, but some incorporeal tug was leading Dmitry to the right room. Indeed, once Dmitry stopped, the nearest door opened, revealing Valera in nothing but a towel over his hips. Dmitry made a show of checking him out as that was definitely what he had wanted and walked past him into the room. Valera seemed outraged.
‘Hey, you can’t just ogle me and say nothing!’
‘Nice abs,’ Dmitry said half-heartedly while landing on an odd chair.
‘Ever a straight guy would say that,’ Valera sounded disappointed.
‘Do you want to me to a sing a serenade to your body or something? Do you want me to comment on every single feature?’ Dmitry asked with a snark.
‘A serenade would be nice,’ Valera scratched his toned stomach, and Dmitry cringed.
‘I mean, you have a nice body. Katya is lucky if she’s into that, and I can’t imagine being into anything else with you.’
‘Watch it, blue boy,’ Valera made a threatening gesture and then laughed. ‘You’re right, though. Let me put something on not to distract you during the learning process.’
Dmitry only groaned in return. Valera rummaged his wardrobe and scared up a white T-shirt that fit him tightly, barely obscuring the problematic areas.
‘You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? But you know, I appreciate the show. Just need some brain tissue to complement the model,’ Dmitry nodded at Valera and overtly licked his lips.
‘You’re no fun,’ Valera grumbled and changed into a loose sweater more appropriate for a private lesson. Dmitry blinked at him meaningfully.
‘Okay, I’m going to create some… erm… cups. Yeah. So watch me, take notes, whatever,’ it was apparent that teaching was not Valera’s forte.
‘Okay,’ Dmitry said emotionlessly and reached for his phone, which was not in its rightful place. He had forgotten it in his room again. No notes it was.
Valera assumed a straight standing pose and started making sporadic motions with his hands. Nothing was happening, and Dmitry’s already low excitement went extinct.
‘Is it necessary to do this?’ Dmitry asked in a bored voice.
‘Shh,’ Valera snarled at him without stopping the motions. ‘Just wait and see.’
After a while the atmosphere in the room became tense, and Dmitry could no longer deny that something was at work. Glowing white forms start manifesting on Valera’s desk, and it took him more grunts and hand flailing for the will o' the wisps to become tea cups at last. Dmitry touched one curiously, and it seemed real enough. Valera looked exhausted, sweat making his forehead shine and his fair hair stick together, but his expression was all kinds of smug.
‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked Dmitry defiantly.
‘That’s impressive,’ Dmitry admitted. ‘But I have some questions.’
‘Fire away,’ Valera said and took the sweater off. Dmitry snorted.
‘What? It’s actually justified now,’ Valera winked and started rubbing his body with the towel.
‘What do you think about when you perform this… magic?’ Dmitry asked while respectfully facing away from Valera.
‘Oh, that’s kinda tricky. You have to imagine the objects like in a vacuum, and they can’t be anything you know from somewhere else. Otherwise you might be tempted to simply teleport them from there instead of creating them. Katya has a collection of cups, but they are black. I made them white on purpose because teleportation requires accuracy. Creating things requires imagination. Something like that.’
‘Hmm, that actually makes sense,’ Dmitry mused. ‘Maybe if that Eduard guy had bothered explaining the process to me, he would still be able to talk.’
‘Eduard is a dick. And he was my mentor, too,’ Valera made a spitting sound. ‘I always had to do everything myself anyway. Glad that you could rid us of him.’
‘Not everyone shares your sentiment,’ Dmitry said bitterly, still avoiding looking at Valera. ‘The librarian was mad at me, said he was like a father to her.’
‘That rat-looking girl? She can get mad? Colour me surprised,’ there was some incredulity in Valera’s voice. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘Nothing I want to repeat,’ Dmitry said determinedly, finishing the conversation, or so it seemed.
Dmitry felt someone touch his shoulder and squirmed, but it was just Valera in a tank top.
‘Hey, you can look now,’ Valera said gently, too gently for someone who was straight and with a girlfriend.
‘You’re being kinda gay,’ Dmitry pouted and tried to push Valera’s hand away, but the grip only tightened.
‘Nah. I know who I like. No offense – if I were gay, I’d definitely hit that freckled ass,’ Valera smirked and sat on another chair, the absence of his touch tangible.
‘Who said that it’s my ass that would get hit? Worry about your little one,’ Dmitry turned to Valera’s side, his face slightly flushed and amused.
‘Whoa, dude, easy,’ Valera made a surrendering gesture with his hands. ‘You’re making being gay less enticing.’
‘You’ve been dangling your delicacies in front of me all this time, and now you’re backing off? Pussy,’ Dmitry flashed his tongue at Valera.
‘I hate how you completely turned the tables on me, but hey, I respect that. Shows that there’s more to you than at first glance,’ Valera said appreciatively.
‘So, why were you doing that? Do you like showing off?’
‘Actually, no,’ Valera admitted with visible reluctance. ‘I mean, Katya likes me just fine, but sometimes I feel… how do you say that… inadequate. Doesn’t help that there are no treadmills and stuff here to keep me in shape. And since you can appreciate the male form and you aren’t a girl Katya will kill later, I thought… why not?’
‘Another victim of the male superman body standard, poor thing,’ Dmitry said with artificial pity in his voice.
‘Well, what do you really think?’ Valera asked almost nervously.
‘Well, you gave me a boner, and I had to quickly hide it, so it counts for something, I guess,’ Dmitry deadpanned.
‘Can you be serious for a moment? I want an honest opinion!’ Valera shook his fist at Dmitry.
‘What’s more honest than your body’s reaction?’ Dmitry shrugged his shoulders. ‘But fine, your body’s hot. I almost pegged you as a gym rat, though you aren’t that… excessive. Nice pecs, too, and the nipples look delectable enough. Would smash, as you straight guys say.’
There was something resembling blush covering Valera’s face, and Dmitry looked proud of himself. He had never praised a guy’s physique, fearing that he would get scrutinized in return, but Valera had offered him a perfect opportunity to do it with no strings attached and no feelings hurt.
‘And you claim you have no boyfriend?’ Valera asked after recovering from the embarrassment. ‘I find it a bit hard to believe.’
‘Being boyfriends requires more than being horny for each other’s bodies, don’t you think? You have hook-ups for that. Not that I’d know anything about them.’
‘You know, one of these days you gotta tell me how this whole thing works for gay guys. Like I was never really repulsed by what you do, contrary to what Katya thinks, but I never really got it either, so like… be my guide,’ Valera said pensively.
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you have Google for that. Or Yandex, if they haven’t banned all gay-related stuff already,’ Dmitry said disdainfully.
‘Fuck them. I have a real person, and I want to hear how bad or how good it is directly from you. Is that okay?’ Valera’s eyes were full of determination.
‘Fine, fine. Maybe next time. Maybe… I’ll be more experienced by then,’ Dmitry modestly brushed his cheek.
‘Oh, you have someone after all?’ Valera jeered. ‘All my striptease was for nothing.’
‘Shut up,’ Dmitry flicked him a bird. ‘It’s just… I might patch things up with someone, and… hell, who knows, it’s probably nothing.’
‘And could that someone be Egor?’ Valera’s voice was poisoned honey.
Dmitry said nothing in return, which spoke volumes.
‘He’s acting kinda weird, you know. Like Zhenya, seriously? No offense to her, she’s a bombshell. But the men here turn to her in despair. She’s their last resort. He was here for what, like one day? Something’s not adding up.’
‘I’ll talk him. I need some clarity, too,’ Dmitry said distantly.
‘Good luck,’ Valera gave him a thumbs up. ‘So, any more questions… erm… about my magic?’
‘You know, I have more, now that your body is all covered up,’ Dmitry quipped. ‘What else can you create?’
‘Well, I can create all sorts of utensils, some tableware like plates, cups, tea pots… Those knitting and sewing things for Katya… And empty boxes. The simpler and the smaller an object is, the more successful the process is. To create something like a gadget I’d have to know what’s inside, and while I did try tinkering with alarm clocks and stuff, I’m still far from pulling it off. Sometimes I feel like giving up, but Katya keeps pushing me to improve, so I do my best… and my best so far is a round table. Come to one of Katya’s parties someday, and I’ll show you.’
‘You aren’t that bad of a tutor, Valera,’ Dmitry said after pondering over his explanation. ‘I think I have the gist of it.’
‘Um, thanks, glad to be of help,’ Valera fidgeted nervously on the chair. ‘Sorry, I’m not used to… you know… being praised and stuff. Except for Katya, but Katya is Katya, she always finds something good in me.’
‘You should cherish her,’ Dmitry said. ‘She sounds like a great girlfriend.’
‘Yeah,’ Valera lowered his head. ‘I don’t feel worthy of her, though. She talks about her previous boyfriend occasionally, and he seemed like a great guy. And now she’s stuck with me.’
Dmitry rose from the chair and stood next to Valera, placing a hand on his shoulder and returning the favour.
‘You’re a better person than I thought, Valera, and I’ve known you for a very short time. Tell her about this lesson, that you helped me and that you made a serious attempt to connect with me. You can omit the part about showing off your body, though. Let her see you in a different light.’
‘Huh, thanks. Di- Dmitry, right? I realize I don’t really call you by your name,’ Valera said meekly.
‘I think you’ve earned the right to call me Dima, but don’t abuse it,’ Dmitry warned him with a finger.
‘Alright, ginger boy,’ Valera giggled. ‘Dima.’
He said Dmitry’s name affectionately, making him groan again. For some reason, Dmitry did not mind the fantasy. God knew when a guy would call him like that, so embracing it for the time being would not hurt.
‘Valya,’ Dmitry murmured.
‘Fuck you, I’m not a girl. Or you wouldn’t like me otherwise,’ Valera corrected his sexism so hilariously that Dmitry accidentally burped, courtesy of the lunch he had devoured. Valera immediately went hysterical, slapping Dmitry’s back in the process.
‘Okay, I don’t want to ruin our moment, but could you teach me how to teleport things? I think it might useful to start with that before trying creation,’ Dmitry said pleadingly.
‘No problem,’ Valera agreed after recuperating from the fit. ‘What do you want to teleport?’
‘My phone, for starters? Or do I need to disassemble it before even trying? You mentioned something about knowing all the insides and outs.’
‘Oh, that’s only for creation. For teleportation you need to know the exact location of your phone and imagine it in your head. Think you can manage that?’
‘Um… I don’t think so. I need to check its location first. Will you wait for me?’
‘Sure. Just don’t rush and try to memorize as many details as possible. I’ll be here.’
Dmitry smiled at Valera and left his room. While moving down the stairs, he stumbled upon Andrey, who was heading in the opposite direction.
‘Dima? What are you doing here?’ Andrey asked Dmitry with concern.
‘Learning how to do magic?’ Dmitry answered sassily. ‘I thought that’s what schools are for, not for forced sex or covert prostitution.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Andrey’s expression of shock was almost believable, if not for the fact that he was in the staff and had to be aware of the underhanded.
‘Forget it,’ Dmitry accelerated his already fast pace, but Andrey blocked him with his body.
‘You can tell me anything, Dima, anything. I want you to feel comfortable here. That’s why I’m here,’ he whispered.
‘Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?’ Dmitry ejected bitterly. ‘I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t even know if you’re MY Andrey. If I can create clones out of nowhere, who is to say no one else can?’
‘Dima…,’ Andrey tried to touch Dmitry, but he recoiled.
‘Just leave me be. We’ll talk on Monday, but only if you’re ready to be completely frank with me.’
Andrey cleared the way, and his hurt expression haunted Dmitry for the rest of the way.
***
Dmitry managed to successfully teleport his phone at the fifth try, and Valera procured a bottle of vodka from the entrails of his bottomless wardrobe to celebrate the occasion. Dmitry gave it a sip and almost spat it back, but as it would be impolite towards Valera who had done a lot for him in one day, he pretended to enjoy the beverage and described it as ‘very singular’. Dmitry also slipped to Valera that he would be meeting the principal, and the guy got the hint, promising to commemorate Dmitry’s success at the next party with the whole crew. Dmitry struggled not to ask who exactly was in the crew as three people were not a party made, and other students must have attended them, some of who could be among the slur speakers, but he had learned more than enough seedy facts in a day.
Dmitry intended to confront the principal as soon as possible. He rebuked himself for having let it all out on Andrey, who might have been genuinely oblivious, although he suspected that in such case Andrey would have been kept in the dark deliberately. Tatyana, for all her defence of him, held ulterior motives, and while she would never reveal them to Dmitry, he had his ways of reading people. He just needed to provoke her into divulging something related to the shitshow, and the rest would be confirmed naturally. The problem was that when he knocked at the door of her office, she did not look inclined to talk.
‘Sorry, Dmitry, but I have urgent matters to attend to. Our discussion will have to take place later,’ she said in her typical fashion.
‘Does it mean that I don’t get to go home?’ Dmitry almost shouted at her.
‘No, no, you will be… assisted by Andrey. Try to be awake as early as six o’clock in the morning, and he will handle the rest,’ the principal said with tiredness in her voice.
‘I see,’ Dmitry nodded dejectedly and then noticed that Andrey was in her office, sitting opposite her desk. He seemed to be in high spirits and not as miserable as Dmitry had left him, and Dmitry decided to leave it that way.
‘Good night, Tatyana Vladimirovna,’ Dmitry said with forced politeness and left.
***
Dmitry was sweaty from the teleportation practice and out of spare sweaters, so he found a bland T-shirt and put it on. His undershirt was filthy as well, and while he did not like being without it, especially in the middle of the winter, Dmitry had no choice but to trust the blanket to keep him warm at night. He also changed his socks and almost changed his underwear, but then he remembered that the cameras were on, and either his penis or cheeks would be on full display. Dmitry then tried to carry out the operation under the blanket, which was a partial success as he had to adjust the mess later, and something might have been caught on camera after all. While in his clean underwear, Dmitry started reflecting on the day’s events, and once his thoughts drifted towards Valera’s body, Dmitry cursed himself for having changed it because one of his body parts required his attention, which would result in dirty business. He had not masturbated ever since leaving his house, and his earlier boner had only aggravated the situation. But doing it under the blanket with the cameras on him seemed uncomfortable at best, so Dmitry decided to postpone the self-pleasure until the weekend when he could do it in the safety of his room. The room likely raided by his grandmother or brother at any moment, but it would be significantly better than the school. Dmitry cleared his thoughts of all men and focused on Alla, who had proven to be amazing and mysterious. He did not envy her life, but he envied her resilience. He felt like the worst was still in store for him, and he did not have it in him to fight the system.
Dmitry’s dreams were graphic in more ways than one. One moment he was in an orgy with a group of faceless men, all his orifices occupied, and the next moment he was being crucified, and his condemner looked like a mash-up of Tatyana and Alla. The words she spoke burned and frostbit him, pricked and gouged him: ‘Innocence lost and nothing gained. What you possessed cannot be retained. The body’s reaction is most honest. So ask it about the hornet’s nest.’
On the following morning Dmitry woke up in cold sweat, and he hesitated to check whether the wetness in his underwear was from a night ‘emission’ or from something much more inappropriate for his age.
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