The Year of the Rat
by Nico Grey
Chapter 12
Looking back, I really don't know if Jebby bought my story of an illness that forces me to avoid sunlight. He had never been at the top of our class academically, but he wasn't stupid.
Maybe he just made himself believe it. That happens with people. It happens a lot. People accept things that they know aren't true because it makes it less complicated for them to just keep on living their lives in the way that they want to live them.
Jebby wanted to live with me. Some of it was probably physical — or sexual — attraction. Some of it may have been a form of restitution for past harm he had done me. Some of it was probably just an intense human need to have at least one close connection with another being. He had chosen me.
I worried about what might happen to the two of us in the long term. The proposed living situation felt too tenuous. There were so many things that could go wrong. But it worked for Jebby in the short term. And I guessed that it would work for me, too.
Jebby had been fading as the night progressed. He would need time to adapt to my — to our — schedule. I encouraged him to go to sleep and reminded him that I really couldn't have the door to our lair unlocked until the sun had gone down. I had one small errand I still needed to complete that night.
When Jebby was finally settled into our nest, he looked up at me expectantly.
I thought I had explained that I still had an errand. It took me a moment to realize what he needed.
I bent over him and kissed him on the side of the head. And just like that, he was asleep.
I crept down the basement corridor to Mike's lair. All my senses told me that he was sleeping soundly.
I found him snuggled deep in his nest. His breathing didn't sound too bad that night. It was encouraging.
I checked on his food and other stores. It looked like he had everything he needed for two or three more days.
I didn't have time to just sit with him for hours. But I did take a few minutes to enjoy the familiar smells, sounds and sights of our lair. They almost made me feel homesick.
I knew that I couldn't stay any longer.
I bent over Mike and kissed the back of his neck. Then I kissed his cheek.
"I love you, Mike," I whispered.
"I love you, too, Rat," he murmured back.
I almost had a heart attack. But it didn't look like Mike was awake.
I couldn't help myself. Before I left, I leaned in again and gave Mike a gentle kiss on his lips. I was really missing him.
Back in my lair, I locked the door and prepared for sleep. I could sense the sun out there, somewhere just below the horizon.
I crawled into our nest. Before I settled in, I kissed Jebby on the cheek. That didn't feel quite right. So I leaned in again and kissed him tenderly on his lips.
My heart felt ready to burst, like it was overfull of something. I realized that I hadn't been feeling very much like a rat recently. I had people that I cared about. I had people that needed me. I had people that I loved.
I lay back into our nest. As I was drifting off to sleep, it hit me that I hadn't been in the church chancel for three days. I had people that I needed to pray for. Mike, Dylan, and Taryn. Father Maxwell. And now Jebby.
I thought that the god would hear me, even if I wasn't lying before his great cross.
I created a picture of that cross in my mind. As I slipped into sleep, I prayed for all of the people in my life that I loved.
When I woke the next day, Jebby was sitting quietly. He was just watching me. When he noticed me stirring, he brightened considerably.
"You really do sleep hard, Rat," he informed me. "I think I could have blown you and you would have kept on sleeping." Then he blushed fiercely.
That was an alarming suggestion. I really wasn't sure how I might react if I woke suddenly from a vampire sleep with his lips around me.
Jebby noticed the concern in my eyes. He rushed to explain himself.
"I'd never do anything like that without your permission," he assured me. "I mean, I want to. But I know that you love someone else."
That required some clarification.
"It isn't that I don't want to have sex with you, Jebby. We might do that sometimes if we both agree. And if we're awake," I added. "I was just telling you about that other person because I wanted to be honest with you. I didn't want you choosing to stay with me like this," I waved my hand to take in the candlelit room, "because you thought it meant we would be, like, boyfriends.
"I'm not saying that we never can," I needed to explain that point. "I do like you. But I owe something very big to another guy. And if he wants us to be together..."
I think Jebby wanted more information. But he decided to leave the question alone for the time being.
The dim light finally cut through the fog in my dim mind. I wondered why Jebby hadn't used one of the solar lanterns. And then I remembered that he couldn't put them in a window because our lair didn't have one. I hadn't thought that through very well.
"I'm sorry, Jebby. You had to sit there all this time. I should have bought a flashlight or something, at least until we get those lanterns charged up."
"I didn't mind, Rat. I mostly stayed in bed. It felt safe here with you," his cheeked reddened a little at that admission. "And I like watching you sleep. I was thinking about all those years...
"I was such an idiot!" The admission came as an explosion. "If I just had the courage to be your friend. I missed out on all this. And I must have hurt you so much."
I couldn't think of anything to say that would help. I reached toward him. He checked my eyes to make sure that I was sincere. Then he joined me in the nest. I held him until his emotional crisis had passed.
Before we went out, I spent a little time trying to think of ways to improve our situation. The main one would have been obvious, had I been a little older. Many of the smaller rooms in the church basement had been created with cheap construction materials. I realized that it shouldn't be too difficult to cut a small opening in the wall between our lair and the room I had prepared for Jebby.
That room did have a small window up near the ceiling. It let in enough light to charge to solar lanterns, or for Jebby to spend time reading in there while he was waiting for the sun to set. I would just have to make sure that the opening we cut in the wall wouldn't let sunlight fall on our nest. It would also require another lock to secure the door to that room. But it seemed like something we could figure out. Maybe Taryn knew somebody who could help us.
That went on my list of things to do. I'd figure out some way to make sure Jebby wouldn't run all over the building and discover Mike. I still had some thinking to do about that problem.
I decided that we should get more food that night. I was still wrestling with how to explain my lack of normal appetite to him.
Shopping for Mike while we were at the Whole Foods was a temporary solution. Jebby would probably assume that the food I bought for Mike was intended for me. I hoped it wouldn't hurt his feelings that we weren't sharing food and a grocery budget.
I concluded that the grocery run could wait for later. While the evening was still young, I dragged Jebby back to the Navy Pier. I think he liked it. It was my idea of a fun way to spend a few hours. I thought that I should probably ask him if there were things he would rather do.
When we finally returned home, we put the groceries away. Then I brought Jebby into the main level of the church. I wasn't sure how he might take it, but I wanted to explain the chancel and what I did there to him.
Surprisingly, he was touched. He wasn't Catholic, but he had strong ideas about faith. And since he also had strong opinions about his former faith, he was open to hearing about my experiences with the church and the connection I tried to make with god.
We ended up spending some time kneeling together in the chancel, communing with that faded icon on the wall. He seemed a bit uncertain when I finally prostrated myself before the cross. But he decided to join me.
There was something about the feeling I got from that position — fully abased before god, with my arms outstretched and open to his universe — that was deeply meaningful in a way that I still didn't understand. I just knew that it made me feel small, but connected to everything in a very big way.
When we finally rose to our feet again, Jebby looked remarkably peaceful. There was a note of wonder in his eyes. I think maybe he get connected with god and his universe like I did.
He remained contemplative after we returned to our lair. I didn't want to disturb his thoughts.
I put the solar lanterns in the window of the room next door. As long as there was sun, Jebby would have light for our lair in another day. I thought about picking up two more of those lanterns. They weren't very expensive and it seemed like a good idea to make sure we always had one or two fully charged lanterns if we needed them.
While I was in that spare room, I did a quick inventory of its contents. I tried to figure out where the sun's rays would fall in the room during the day, and what I would need to do to create a passage between the two rooms that wouldn't allow sunlight directly into our lair.
When I returned to our lair, Jebby was yawning. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. So I suggested that he sleep. I still had one more stop that night.
Once Jebby was tucked into our nest, I kissed him goodnight. He didn't fall directly to sleep, like he had the night before. But I was gratified by the expression of contentment on his face. It bordered on bliss.
Just a couple of nights ago he had been anxious, frightened, abandoned by those who were supposed to love him. Now he felt safe. Maybe he felt loved. I hope that he did. It had only been forty-eight hours, but I felt that I did love him, at least a little bit.
I had more time in Mike's lair that night. After I delivered his supplies, I took the time to just sit and watch him sleep. I wondered how he was feeling. I wondered how he had been spending his days.
I knew that he always seemed to be home at night. I was pretty sure that he wasn't working. That was a good thing. Maybe it would help him feel better. And it really wasn't hard for me to earn the money needed to keep Mike in food and medicine.
It was strange to think that I would never have to worry about money. As long as there were perverts out there, there would be a market for boy's bodies. And as long as I lived, I would always have the body of a boy.
That was disturbing. It was good that I could always earn money for myself and for the people that I cared about. But no matter how many years I lived, my body was never going to grow up and make me a man.
I had spent years of my childhood, once I understood that boys do grow up, looking forward to becoming a man someday. And now that path was as closed to me as if I had been pancaked under the wheels of a tractor trailer while out riding a bicycle. True, I was better off than a flattened kid that was now under the ground somewhere. But it was really disturbing to realize that at least part of my life was already over before it had even begun.
Maudlin thoughts made me careless — or maybe thoughtless. I found myself wondering what parts of Mike's life were already abandoned forever, a young teenager trapped here in a foreign country. I was prompted to explore that question a little deeper.
I shouldn't have, but I opened one of his sketch pads and started leafing idly through the pages. Most of those images were of scenes I recognized from the heart of Chicago. Mike loved the waterfront. He had made many sketches of the lake, boats on the lake, and wildlife that lived in and around the water.
There were many sketches of the church, both inside and out. I was particularly struck by an image of the chancel that almost captured the glow that I felt as I abased myself in the dust before the great cross.
There were images that I didn't recognize. Those were fewer. They left a sense of scenes captured from memory. I assumed that they were recollections of his home in Canada.
There were portraits, too. There were several of a beautiful woman. She seemed very young. There was an air of tragedy about her. Some foreboding of less happy and healthy times waiting not too far ahead. Or maybe it was just an idealized vision of somebody who had already fallen on less happy times.
I found a couple drawings of an elderly woman. She seemed pleasant, caring, decent. I wondered if she might be Mike's grandmother.
And there was a drawing of a middle-aged couple. There was something indifferent about the woman, and something menacing about the man. I hoped they weren't Mike's parents.
I kept turning the pages slowly, opening a new pad when I had viewed all the pages of the previous one. I wondered if Mike had drawn a self-portrait. I was curious about how he would portray himself.
There were a few images of people on the streets of downtown Chicago. Most of them seemed to focus on the children there. Many of those children looked just like us. Homeless. Abandoned. Lost.
There were a series of portraits of young men. I recognized several of them as Mike's co-workers. He even had a sketch of little Marco.
I dreaded finding sketches of his employers. I really couldn't imagine how he viewed them in his mind.
The next page amazed me. It was so carefully drawn. Such detail. So lifelike. It was like looking in a mirror. I almost expected to see the facial expression transform into the amazement I was certain was etched on my own face.
Mike had hundreds of pages of amazing art, but he had drawn nothing else with such detail and care. The possibility of submitting it for my sixth grade yearbook photo flitted randomly through my head.
I tried smiling. The picture didn't return my smile. It just kept gazing back at me with such a vulnerable, yet hopeful, expression. It might have been me on the day that I met Mike.
An additional detail caught my attention. None of Mike's other drawings had any identification on them except for the image itself. In the upper right-hand corner, this one was labeled "Rad!"
It brought tears to my eyes. I was almost unable to move on to the next page.
What followed were a series of pages filled with sketches of me. Most of them were taken in our lair. I recognized the background. I even thought I might remember the exact moment when I struck this pose, or had that expression cross my face. It really was incredible.
I began to leaf through the pages faster and faster. There had to be at least thirty drawings of me there! And then, oh my god! When had Mike ever seen me like that?!
It was compelling. It was seductive. It was me, bare-assed naked.
I was pretty sure that Mike had never seen that much of me. But it looked very lifelike. Incredibly lifelike! He had even captured a couple of tiny moles on my upper thigh.
And there were more like that. I wondered why Mike would have spent so much time drawing me.
The last sketch I saw was embarrassing. And exciting. I was standing, leaning back a bit, with my hands twined behind my head. I don't know the inspiration for the scene, but apparently the cops had just burst through the front door screaming, 'put 'em in the air'! It was in the air, all right! And probably a little longer than in real life. I think that was the only sketch Mike had made of me that wasn't one hundred percent anatomically accurate.
I was so enthralled by what I was looking at that I missed the faint glow increasing outside the basement window. When I felt a sense of lethargy begin to creep over me, I started. I really wanted to see more. But I had to go.
I stacked Mike's sketch pads back carefully in the pile next to his backpack. I needed to hurry. But I wasn't going to leave without saying good night.
I bent hurriedly over Mike. But I took my time for the important parts. I kissed him on the back of his neck. I kissed his cheek tenderly. Then I leaned in and kissed him gently on his lips. I wanted that one to last.
"Good night, Mike. I love you."
I was already pulling away when I heard, "I love you, too, Rad."
I didn't have time to look back. The sun was rising.
I was afraid to visit Mike's lair for the next few days. I didn't know whether he had been awake and had seen me. If he had, he might be waiting for me the next time I visited. And I still hadn't figured out what to do if that happened. But it was really hard not to see him.
I worked to prepare that spare room for Jebby to use during the day. He insisted that he wouldn't use it; that he wanted to stay with me while I slept. But I wanted him to have that option.
I cut an opening in the sheetrock walls that was very close to the exterior wall of the church basement. Light from the basement window never fell at such an acute angle. The opening was just a little bigger than this rat.
I bought dark blankets to hang over the opening like a curtain. Some old furniture to shield that passage from a casual inspection completed the renovation. I was kind of proud of my work and the freedom it would give Jebby.
He was there, either watching me or lying next to me, when I woke every evening. I worried that he was limiting his existence by staying with me all day. But it was comforting to feel such devotion.
I had worried that Jebby might try to persuade me to have sex with him. I didn't have to read his mind to know that was something he wanted. But he never said anything.
When I tried to bring up the topic obliquely, he told me that he really like holding me and sharing that nest with me. That was pretty cool. I liked holding him, too.
Jebby had been with me for a little more than a week when I woke up one evening feeling uncomfortable. My entire body ached, but the most acute discomfort seemed to be coming from my stomach and chest. It was hard for me to really figure out what was wrong because my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, or maybe wrapped tightly in blankets. I couldn't ever recall feeling that way before.
My muscles tensed and I felt some resistance that prevented me from moving. It took me a few seconds to realize that Jebby was still asleep and had pushed himself back into my body. My arms and legs were wrapped tightly around him.
I needed to stretch my cramped muscles. But I didn't want to move too suddenly and disturb Jebby, so I tried to gradually unwrap my arms and legs. They didn't want to move. When I tried, it felt like my body was clutching Jebby tighter. And the pain in my stomach grew a little stronger.
As I tried to regain control over my body, I realized that I could sense blood flowing. It was pulsing steadily inside the person I held firmly in my grasp. It felt warm. Nourishing. It was calling to me.
I studied the side of his neck. I could sense the steady rhythm of blood just below the surface of his skin, flowing through his carotid artery. And then I could see it. And I could feel it calling to me again.
I leaned closer. I brought my lips to the side of his neck. I licked the skin with my tongue. I could taste the blood pumping beneath the surface. I nibbled with my lips.
I could feel heat rising within me. I continued to bathe the side of the neck with my tongue and suck gently with my lips. I scraped my teeth against that tender skin. I heard something roaring in my ears. The blood was calling.
I must have stifled a giggle. That's what it sounded like to me. Suddenly my lips were pressed against a throat. The skin was just as tender there. And then lips. The scent of blood was weaker.
The lips pressed against mine. They tasted good. I used my tongue to clean them.
And then I felt a tongue enter my mouth. And I heard more giggling. The tongue explored my mouth. I could taste it. It washed over my teeth. I almost bit it.
But my head was slowly clearing. That was his tongue. Jebby's tongue. That had been Jebby's throat. And Jebby's neck.
With dawning horror, I realized what had almost happened. That awareness helped clear my head further. I fought to control my breathing. I opened my eyes.
I was awake! I was awake. I was under control. I was pretty sure that I was.
Jebby withdrew from my mouth. He was smiling. Almost seductively.
"That was a great way to wake up, Rat!" he informed me. "You can do that to me anytime you want. I won't mind."
Then he must have recognized the implication.
"But I'll never do that to you! I promise! Not without your permission."
I had a powerful urge to thrust him away from me. What if those sensations returned? What if I felt his neck under my teeth again? What if I couldn't control the need this time?
But he was happy. He was smiling. He would be hurt if I suddenly pulled away from him. And even worse if I pushed him away.
I focused on clearing my mind completely. To bring myself fully under the control of my mind. And I tried to sort through what had just happened.
It was at least partially obvious. I had almost dined on Jebby!
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