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“I wish I knew you better, Al. Roland has left me high and dry, and I do not know you at all.”
Cuthbert is naked on the beach in Mejis by the Sea. They have been swimming.
“You know me,” Alain replies, but he is lying. Cuthbert knows a boy who sits beside him in his lessons and laughs at his jokes. That is a shell.
Bert shakes his head. Wet sand cakes in his fine, brown hair. “Not really. But I’d like to try. I’d like for you to touch me.”
How tiny Cuthbert is; how delicate. Alain does not realize at first:
He touches him.
Cuthbert’s heart stops.
Utterly alien, says the sharp memory of Cuthbert’s voice inside of Jamie’s head. Have you ever been fucked?
(It is because Cuthbert is tiny and delicate that he always has the right words. Words are all he has, but Alain loves him anyway.
“It is like a web or like a small platoon of tongues.”
“It is like the antennae of butterflies.”
“It is like a wave upon the ocean breaking on the shore and filling every footprint, every tiny hole bored by a plethora of sand dwelling crustaceans.”
None of Cuthbert’s metaphors are accurate, but they are the right words. Alain appreciates the efforts of his friend’s limited brain to understand.)
“Your body thought that you were drowning on the beach. You are too young. You cannot give me everything.”
“I asked you to, and I’m asking again. Let’s try my body first this time to get me used to the idea. You’re young, too, Alain.”
“I’m not.”
The monster in Jamie’s picture is servicing the woman, not raping her. What pleasure would it gain from penetrating her sexually? It’s possible it’s taking pleasure from her fear, pain, and distress. . . but Alain is encouraged by Jamie’s arousal; he chooses the more positive interpretation.
(Sex with Cuthbert is pleasant in a soft, vicariously human way. Cuthbert’s physical pleasure brings with it a cozy mental afterglow, and his mental pleasure at being the cause of Alain’s body’s orgasm is warm and lovely. Alain would let Cuthbert fuck him all the time if he wanted to.
“Flattered, I’m sure, but there’s really no point.”)
“Not exactly.” If Alain were answering Cuthbert’s remembered question inside Jamie’s mind, he would be lying now. He chooses to elaborate: “That is not exactly how he sees me, but it’s close.”
Cuthbert is nervous even though Alain went first; he is too young.
“Say true, I’m not a man, not yet, but what are you? I’m sure I can get used to being taken.”
Cuthbert has the right ideas sometimes, too.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck . . .”
Cuthbert’s tongue forms the words endlessly until Alain removes his voice and makes him stop.
Inside Alain’s head, Cuthbert is articulate again.
He is articulate in ways that he has never been before.
In ways that can’t be set upon the page.
Cuthbert sucks Jamie off in the Library, and his tiny, delicate self thrills at such squalid humanity.
Cuthbert sucks Roland off in the bunkhouse, and he thrills at such a measure of control.
“Have you been practicing?”
“Maybe.”
Roland jerks Cuthbert off while standing close behind him with his lips against his neck.
(Cuthbert would let Roland fuck him all the time if he wanted to, but Roland does not want to fuck him at all.)
“Let us go back to the Library. If we are lucky, we will find another picture.”
“You were the one who was curious.”
“This is more intense.”
Alain’s orgasm is a bodily function like eating and expelling waste, but Cuthbert likes it anyway, even though he knows it has but little meaning to Alain.
“Look at me there; is that just what he wanted?”
“No.”
(This is not how their communication really goes.
They are articulate in ways that can’t be set upon the page.)
Without Cuthbert, Alain would be alone.
How tiny Cuthbert is; how delicate. Alain is terrifying to mere humans; he knows this.
(Cuthbert is brave.)
“As hard as you want.”
“You have returned.”
“I was not ever gone.”
Like a small platoon of tongues.
Like a wave.
Like the antennae of butterflies.
Jamie will never understand, not even if Cuthbert tells him the right words, but Cuthbert should not be alone, either.