blueAlto

Eyes cast to the cabin wall, Ben refuses to look at the face of Leland Quinley. Disturbing at the best of times, the slim, bony and pale face with dead, gray eyes can take on quite a sinister element when seen in the late hours at firelight. Ben knows this as neither illusion, nor effect. Experience tells this twelve year old that the sinister elements he fears are all too real.

Just as he has the few times before, Ben sees what is yet to come in the all too clear lens of his mind. The way the man has stared at him today during the instruction, was the first hint. The way he strokes his chin with long, yellow nails, the bulging eyes, and heavy, anticipatory breathing telling the boy what he is too young to know.

Zoning in, locking eyes with the child, Leland begins.

"Did you know Ben, it was in the days that a thief was called a highway man, that the legend was first reported. First reported, and first feared Ben. For it was said that if a visitor arrived late in the night carrying the hand of glory, it was if death itself had come knocking. Do you remember Ben, what the hand of glory is"

"Yes sir, I do".

Impatient for the answer, Leland squeals his request "Then tell me you faggot. The way I told you to say it," he spits, through tight, white lips.

Drawing on a strength he wonders if he even knows, it is just after midnight when Ben meets the mans eyes, and in a voice betraying absolutely everything this boy is to be at his core, he begins.

"It is the severed right hand of a dead man. Freshly dead, and taken when he is still in the noose, the hand of glory is more powerful than an army of one thousand, when it is in fact the hand of a cold blooded killer".

Willing himself to smile, Ben Walker shuts the screams of Savannah George out of his mind, almost convincing himself it is for his own survival.

With both of its hands resting on the slender, prominent chin, as if in prayer, Ben is aware he has pleased the thing in the tall boots. As it manically squeals, Ben lays out the equipment Leland will require. Double back saw and the pigs cloth hoods. Four of them, Ben counts. One will be required for each.....

With a deep, guttural and satisfied groan, Ben breaks out of the flashback, and lets out a louder than expected, "Fuuuccckkk, fuuuucckk" When he unloads, it is a long, weeks worth of seed, his hands grasping the tight round ass of the trick bent over the four post bed.

He had picked the kid up at the Hole In The Wall, that nasty little meth den in the heart of SOMA, less than an hour ago. Grinding himself deep inside the tight ass he has just tossed a solid fuck into, Ben is taken off guard by two things.  One, the speed, and just how much the small amount had affected him; and two, the force at which he came. It had indeed been awhile.

 
Beads of sweat dripping from his face, landing on the small of the kids back, Ben pulls out, reaching for a towel, slapping the kid who said his name was Trevor, on the ass. "That's it for me dude"

"Oh come on man, one more, we're just getting started. I can do you now, fucking ride you for a while and give you time to work up another load. I'm so fucking horned I can go another four or five rounds til I pop off".

Ben snorts silently to himself, thinking that with the amount of Tina his guest has sucked up, there is no way he'll be shooting til this time tomorrow, let alone getting it hard enough to "ride him".

"Trevor boy, how old are you?"

"Twenty three"

"Well, being your significant elder, I am gonna pass, as it's three thirty in the am, and I have a busy one tomorrow."

With a cocky smile, Trevor strokes his very flaccid cock, "Well how old are you"

"Forty one", Ben says, buttoning up his Levis and tossing on the t-shirt that had been laying on the pile of hastily strewn clothes.

"Fuck! You're old man! I wouldn't think past, like, thirty three".

"Trevor you're too kind. But you gotta split, I'm wiped."

"Okay, just let me see if hardcorescissorboy is on line. See if he wants to go a round or two on my ass".

"Computer's on, just be quick okay"?

Visions of Trevor as a gay, buffed up pink energizer bunny doing a tweaked out march up Market Street make Ben smile. He hears Trevor confirm plans for an attempt at round two on his ass, by someone named "scissorboy". Ben makes a mental note not to ask.

Though it doesn't matter, as somewhere in the dark and long put to bed memories that inhabit the mind of Benjamin Walker, something begins to dawn. It has been festering for a few days now, ever since getting that call from the officer in New York.

In a flash he is back at the cabin.

One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."

Just as quick as the first flash, and with a sudden shake, he snaps himself out of it, wondering if Trevor has noticed. Apparently not, as Trevor is busy snorting up a fat line of Tina from the mail shelf in the hallway. Ben makes another mental note that at forty one, one line of meth is too many, and he vows to not make that mistake again anytime soon. He leans in to give Trevor a quick, almost obligated goodbye kiss, and the younger man instead plants himself square on, shoving his tongue down the back of Bens dry throat, hands cupping and rubbing his cock. Resisting, the older man pulls back.

"Simmer down there stud muffin, round two is waiting, remember".

"Shit, I always loose track of time when I party".

"Yeah about that sunshine, go easy eh?" Ben calls out after the bouncing Trevor.

"Don't worry. Daddy"! the young man laughs, hitting his stride as he bounces into the pitch black, and mostly empty, San Francisco night.

Ten minutes later, Ben tries unsuccessfully to will himself into sleep, and clear across the continent, in the heart of Manhattan, the first spears of light open up the city sky, and the bloated and decomposing body of the woman who was once Savanna George, is placed on a stainless steel table.

***

The young assistant to the medical examiner is not pleased with his assignment this morning. Being new, the West 53'rd Avenue county morgue is not the most prime of locations, but it is all the young and very green medical graduate can hope for. Glancing at the intake sheet, he notes the case details.

• Female, late thirties, found in bathtub, X 5 days routine decomposition, jagged, deep laceration to throat, possibly self inflicted, other trauma present: sub dural haematoma, with possible brainstem herniation, R eye complete evisceration, further primary findings unremarkable..

As he gets himself ready for the day, the future coroner rubs the Vicks under his nose, while making a mental note to avoid his morning ritual of a ham, egg and cheddar bagel. It is not sitting well.

***

Three full time zones away in San Francisco, it is near five thirty am when sleep finally comes for Ben Walker. And just as the morning fog rolls in from the bay, enveloping South Of Market in a soft gray film, it comes to him again.

Mama had scarecelly turned her back,
the thumb was in alack, alack

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.

Holding the bird with the broken wing close to Ben's cheek, the man who had once been considered human, stares at him, as the cold  grey eyes pierce and close in on their target.

"Do I have to do everything you little faggot"? the man spits.

And as the odd man in the tall boots crudely breaks the neck of the injured robin, it asks the child,

"Tell me Benjamin, does it sing?"

He closes his eyes to block out the hideous squeal, and make the feel of the long nails on the back of his neck disapear.

"Fuck!"

Drenched in sweat, Ben bolts upright as he hears the phone. He catches it on the third ring.

"Mr. Walker, detective Dubois NYPD. We spoke the other day concerning Ms. George".

"Ah yes, thank you for getting back to me. I was wondering, you had mentioned a neighbour who had made a 911 phone call that evening and reported hearing someone; a man, in Savannahs apartment..."

"Yes, Gina the woman in  5D..."

"Detective I was hoping I could perhaps speak with her and as...." Ben was cut off mid sentence.

"Oh I'm sorry Mr. Walker I thought I had told you. Probably not, things have kind a gone crazy with this case.  It was the strangest thing though, Miss Ebevore, unfortunately, is dead. She was electrocuted later that night. Some damaged and faulty wiring, took out literally half the building. Not surprising for that part of West 57'th, given that time...."

The detective continues on about the lack of maintenance on the pre war brownstones of Manhattans east side, though Ben has already set the phone down. He almost makes it to the bathroom, before vomiting just outside its door.

Shutting his eyes tight and trying to block it out is futile. Ben knows this as much as he knows anything.

The man in the tall boots.

"Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."

Ben pounds a fist onto the sink, and throws open the cold water nozzle. Splashing his face and shutting his eyes tight, the handsome and square jawed mans face contorts; he trys again to block it out. And again, it is futile. Of course Ben knows this as much as he knows anything. As much as he knows that the death of Gina was anything but an accident, due to rotting and faulty wiring.

Sitting on the porcelain floor, in the pale green bathroom of 99 Mercer St, the SOMA loft that for the past fifteen years has passed for home, Ben Walker understands what they are up against. Somehow, some way, he has found them. He had already managed to get to Savannah, though he knew that wasn't an especially hard target. But now it would be his turn. Or Jason. Maybe even Serena.

Walking into the hall, Ben Walker does what the past fifteen years have trained him to do so well. The art of throwing caution to the wind and buying a little time.

Rolling up the twenty he digs from his pocket, he snorts a more than generous line from the baggy Trevor has left on the mail shelf. Grabbing the tan corduroy jacket from the hall closet, as he feels the familiar sting in his nostrils, he impatiently awaits the rush that will soon spread from his scalp to his toes. Throwing on his Mariners cap, Ben sets out on the purposeful task that will occupy his brain and his body, and provide a bit of distance between him and what he will inevitably deal with sooner rather than later.

As Ben makes his way to the sex club three blocks south, his mind is on anything but getting laid. He thinks about the phone call he will make later that evening. Jason. It has been awhile. He considers what has passed between them the last several years, and knows that it is still not long enough. I'm sorry bud, this can't wait, Ben Walker says to no one in particular, as he disappears behind the tall black door on Harrison St.

Several hours later when he leaves from that same door, it is without relief. The weight heavy on this mans mind is obvious, as he walks the three short blocks toward home. Eyes cast to the sidewalk, Ben Walker pulls his tan corduroy jacket tight, shielding his body from the breeze brought in on the dark whitecaps of San Francisco Bay. 

by: Allan Rae