Everything is sweet
In the house of lust.
Everything is neat
In the house of lust.
People do walk bare
In the house of lust.
People do love bare
In the house of lust.
No one is roasted
In the house of lust.
Asses are toasted
In the house of lust.
Child
When I was a boy, I never really understood what that pinky house with a unicorn sigil at the end of the street was for, except for living, obviously. But I knew it was different. The two gentlemen who lived there looked nice and clean and they always said Hello back to me. They were fully grown when I was a kid but I liked looking at them. They even let me play in their backyard – and made the best lemonade – but mummy banned me from going there. I never did go back there although I dreamt of it. They had those fancy cut bushes in the shape of animals and astonishing flower beds.
I grew and cared for other things. I perfected my piano playing and singing. At least, unlike other kids, I didn’t have to go to Sunday school because my parents were atheists. I spent my Sundays walking around the neighbourhood, sometimes roller skating, sometimes cycling. I would always stop at the pink house and look. Often, there was a man or two in the windows. Sometimes they waved at me and sometimes their faces went like Ooo or Ohh and sometimes they just smiled blissfully. I didn’t understand that but I always waved back at them. Lots of luxury cars were often parked in front of the house but I never really cared about cars. It was my dad who liked to go looking at the ‘-chines’ and he would always take me with him and tell me which is Rolls Royce and which is Porsche and which is Jaguar. I dreamt of having a house like that but I never cared about cars that much. The house was this old school, wood covered building with three floors and surely a basement, and a large garden behind it. Later I learned that it’s called queen anne. I hoped that when I’m big enough, I will be able to go look inside…
I always knew I was different. Not just because I was the smartest kid in the class. Well, at least at primary school. But also because I liked boys. I knew it always but I started realising it fully around my thirteenth birthday because then the family started asking me the usual ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ question which every teenager had to hear and answer and be embarrassed by countless times. I haven’t thought of the house in years, except that I’d love to have one as such, one day. I rode a bike to school or a bus when it was raining so I never waved to the windows nor have I looked that way much again. Until the day of my fifteenth birthday.
Teenager
That day my bike was in the service and I missed my bus so I decided to walk. It was about twenty minutes to my home so it wasn’t a big deal. I knew there was a family gathering planned later that day, but I hated those so I took a slow and long stroll, and before I knew it I found myself wandering about the pink-coloured house at the end of our street. There were no cars parked at the front and I decided to go check if the garden behind is still as beautiful as it once had been. I made a quick glance toward the windows but they seemed abandoned as well. And so I snook around the house and made my way through the living fence into the hidden garden. It indeed was a wonder still. A beautiful, stunning sight to behold. Some of the trees were bigger and especially the Magnolia that I helped to plant myself so many many years ago and forgot about completely. It was March and she was blooming splendidly with enormous pink blossoms. I stood there admiring the beauty when I got startled as fuck! I heard a neigh from distant part of the otherwise silent garden, from where the orchard had been. I even glimpsed a white horse’s back as it galloped away from me and disappeared in the growth. As I was gazing in the distance hoping to catch another glimpse of this strange white horse, I jumped again. A hand touched my shoulder. I turned quickly and stood up to face the stranger. Only it was no stranger at all. It was Fabian, one of the two gentlemen who lived there and whom I have been friends with before my mom forbade it.
“Oh! Hello, uncle Fabian,” I mumbled timidly.
“Hello, Marcus, just Fabian, please” he smiled warmly. He looked older than I remembered but still wore a woollen suit and had this old hairstyle from the old movies, a side part. His hair was still yellow and thick but the sides had shown a slight grey coming. I thought he was maybe thirty or forty.
“You are trespassing, are you aware of that?” He raised his eyebrow and I remember I loved that when he did it when I was a kid. I used to laugh so much when he would do it. And a smile came across my face with the memory. “Something funny?” he asked kindly.
“No, I, well, yes. I… I forgot so much! We used to have so much fun when I was little. We planted this beauty here. I was just admiring the blossoms…” I stammered but I didn’t feel threatened, it was more like nervosity. Like meeting an old friend wanting to share the years and feeling and being overwhelmed and sort of flabbergasted.
“It does have nice blossoms,” he smiled kindly, walked past me and touched one of them. As he was passing me, I could smell his perfume. Something wooden and spicy with a tint of vanilla. I remembered that smell too. I felt a sudden urge to hug him but I was big now and big boys don’t hug. Especially not big gay boys who are keeping it a secret. “Marcus? Are you with us?”
“What? Oh… Yes. Oh, that’s for me? Thank you!” I knew I sounded very gay and excited, which I was. But Fabian was standing there, handing me one of the beautiful pink blossom. Older he was, but very handsome, too.
“It is your birthday today, isn’t it?”
“Y-yes, it is. How… How do you remember all that?”
“That’s a long story, for another day.” He looked around himself and turned towards the gazebo. “Shall we sit for a bit? This drizzle is killing me.”
“O-okay.” Now I looked around. But there was no way my parents could see me here.
“How have you been?” he asked me when we sat down on the round wooden bench, facing each other. I took off my backpack and relieved myself in the seat. “Have they been treating you nicely?”
“You mean my folks?” He nodded and I carried on: “Well, I mean, it can always be better but I have my space and I get food. They are too much you know? I’m better alone with my flowers and projects.”
“Really? What projects?” he leaned towards me, interested.
“That’s a story for another day,” I smirked at him in return.
“It is now, isn’t it?” he laughed. “Happy birthday, Marcus. Come back here whenever you like. We never lock the front door. If you feel sad or want to talk or whatever, you are always welcome here.” And he rewarded me with the warmest smile I have seen in years.
“T-thank you.” I really wanted to hug him. And my hormones made me imagine even more. He was closer and kinder to me than my own father. I rose up to leave, he stood up as well and offered me a hand. I shook it and clutched maybe too firmly. A worry came across his face but I couldn’t handle any more mixed feelings and rousing testosterone in my pants, so I just quickly smiled, let go of his hand and ran away.
I suffered through the birthday party which wasn’t really for me but for the family to meet up and talk gossip and politics and sports. Neither of those things were my interest. And girls topic even less. I spent some mandatory time with them until I got cheap gifts I never wanted and then I vanished to my plants and my PlayStation. I couldn’t stop thinking about the pink house.
Eighteen
It is my birthday. Again. I’m pissed. The family are all here, talking about whatnot and not paying any attention to me. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. I want peace. But I cannot get that either. It is mandatory for everyone to sit here and talk, but I am the hostage. They sang the very deep and original tune for me and finished with the most cacophonic “YOUUU” I have heard so far. I’m sitting here, sipping a diet coke and hating the world. I don’t want to tell them. But I will. Just to make them mad. And right… Now.
“Hey family, I have an announcement.” Nothing. Babbling and ignorance. As ever. Okay. As you wish… I take a very deep breath and yell: “I AM GAYYY!”
Silence.
Finally.
I am relieved. But trembling. My mom looks at me frowning, then smiles.
“Darling, we know you are here but please, we want to talk. We haven’t seen each other for two months, there’s a lot of catching up to do.” As if it was the most obvious thing.
‘Catching up my ass’ I think, it’s only gossiping about neighbours. Including the guys from the pink house.
“I’m not kidding. I am. I’m gay…”
“Please,” my mother goes on, “stop the tantrum, we know that is nonsense. You are our son and we are not gay so there is no way you could be. Go to your room if you no longer wish your presents.”
What? “What?! Do you know you’re speaking nonsense, mom?”
“Marcus, this is enough. Go to your room, now!”
“I am gay, mother. Is that all you have to say?”
There. She gasps. She realises I indeed am not kidding. She grasps my father’s fat arm and looks at him frightfully.
“Marcus,” utters my father firmly. “You are not gay. We are no Christians so we don’t believe any of that bullshit…”
“I do,” squeaks my aunt timidly.
“Shut up, Cecilia, I am talking to Marcus.”
“Dad…”
“YOU SHUT UP, TOO! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WE THROW YOU A BIRTHDAY PARTY AND THIS IS YOUR THANKYOU? THIS IS HOW YOU IMAGINE GRATITUDE FOR FEEDING YOU AND CLOTHING YOU AND EDUCATING YOU FOR EIGHTEEN – FUCKING – YEARS?!”
I don’t hold myself back. “But I AM GAY! AND THE GUYS FROM THE END OF THE STREET ARE NO FREAKS, THEY ARE LIKE ME AND THEY RESPECT ME AND THEY RESPECT EVERYONE.” I take a deep breath, enjoying being heard for once. And I add darkly: “Can’t be said about you lot.”
“As you wish.” My father whispers. He never does. But now he does. It’s scary. “If what you say is TRUE,” he clenches his teeth, “then you are NOT. MY. SON. I did not give life to an unnatural FREAK!”
This hit. Hard. In the middle of the chest. Everyone is mute. I am speechless. Breathless. Swiped off my feet. I fall back on the sofa hardly. This is what they think? I look to my mom. She holds his arm, trembling. The disgust in her eyes is almost tangible.
I want to cry. But I can’t even get a tear out. I am shaken to the core.
I feel like the ground is falling apart beneath my feet and I ‘m falling.
Deep.
Into the abyss of oblivion.
The stares. I cannot bear them. I rise up, slowly. I must look terrible. I don’t care. I roll up the sleeves of my sweater and want to say something. But words fail me. I walk slowly towards the front door.
“If you leave that door,” my father breaths heavily, “don’t ever come back.”
“Gladly,” is the last thing I say and I do leave. I walk slowly. Hoping to hear them chasing after me. But no. My cousin looks at me through the window but her mother drags her back and pulls the curtain. I know my destination. The one place I am welcome. I hope…
The front doors of the pink house are open and a couple of young-looking muscular guys is just leaving them. I approach slowly, I can’t really get up to pace. Fabian, the blond guy, is standing in the dim hallway behind the doors, waving at the guys. They get into some expensive car and ride away. Fabian almost wants to close the doors when he spots me. He walks out curiously, tilts his head as if wondering who I am. Then, all of a sudden, he rushes towards me. His brown wollen suit doesn’t allow him to run fast, still he’s by my side in an eyeblink. I smell precious wood and vanilla and something else… A musk, a manly one, lush and fresh. Of course! Now I realise what the guys in expensive cars come here to do… I can’t look into Fabians blue eyes. I am too broken inside. He grabs me around my shoulders, looks around cautiously and says only: “Come.”
We walk slowly through the hall to the back door and out into the garden. I glimpse a white horse’s back in the distance. So that’s what startled me three years ago. I’m slowly beginning to gather myself and getting a sense of where I am. We passed the animal-shaped bushes and the magnolia. The gazebo is on our right at the moment. The apple orchard is in full blossom, although it’s still rather cold. The sun is shining but not for me. Not today. Fabian is holding my left shoulder, caressing me gently with his right arm. I’m not sure I need that, but it’s actually kind and sweet. It helps, when I let it. He doesn’t speak. He lets me process. We stroll gently among the blooming trees, an occasional birdsong lifts my spirit. When we get halfway through the long orchard, I stop. I finally look at him.
“They hate me,” I whisper.
“No, they don’t.” He says it so firmly that I halt. Then he continues: “They hate themselves. And there is a concept in their brains that hurts them but they nourish it. Nothing grows as quickly and spreads as rapidly as a nurtured self-hate. Hating people for who they love is a crime against your inner love. They don’t understand this, of course, so they come up with a primitive hate speech.”
“How… What? How do you know all this?” I am so confused. Both from his knowledge and his wisdom. I hope it is wise, it does sounds logical to me…
“I observe people. I have been doing that for a very, very, very long time.”
“Long time? You mean like twenty years or?”
“Marcus. I don’t look my age.”
“What do you mean?” I’m even more confused now.
“I am not human,” he says slowly. That actually explains a lot. “And I think you know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Darius and I, we have been here for centuries. We built this house with our own hands over a hundred years ago.”
“What? But you look like forty – tops!” I exclaim, too loud, perhaps.
“I am not forty and I do prefer tops,” he smirks, “but jokes aside. I can change my apparel. I can choose how old I look. I have been aging here for four generations now. I like this place. I always disappear and then come back as my son or brother. People are ignorant.”
“And Darius?”
“He comes and goes, never stays. He’s much older than me.” He waves his hand about like that’s not even interesting enough to talk about. Bu my mind needs to talk about this!
“What?! I thought you were a couple…” I don’t understand.
“We are, sometimes. But we do not own each other nor do we demand the other’s presence, time, and specifically not the body. Demanding an exclusive physical right to a person’s body is not love. That is slavery. If we wish to spend time together, we do. If we don’t, we don’t. We respect each other. And, as I said before, he is much older than me.”
“Is…” I start slowly, “Is it rude to ask…”
“It is not. The answer is I don’t know. I’m a shifting spirit. I appeared here during the colonial era. I don’t count it but it’s about five hundred and fifty eight years. Give or take a month.” He is joking, obviously. But is he?
“Where is Darius?” I ask. “Were those guys a… replacement?”
“Oh, on the contrary. We’ve had a foursome. John and Mark are friends.” He says it so effortlessly as if he would tell me it had been raining. “Darius is always hungry after a good fuck.” He gazes back to the house. I follow his focus. I see the white horse by the pink house, plucking some grass. I can still only see its butt.
“But where is he?” I inquire again. “Is he in the house?”
“He’s grazing. You’re looking right at him.”
“What?” I had no idea people could turn into horses. I have also never really seen Darius. Fabian has always spoken to me alone. I have been here three times since my fifteenth birthday, always when my folks were out of town or on a holiday. We ate biscuits and drank some tea, here in the garden. But always us two, never Darius.
“Darius,” yells Fabian, “come greet Marcus!”
And I can see the horse turning his head and – just for a glimpse – I think I can see a shining, long, spiralled horn growing out of his forehead. The next second, there is no horse. Just a beautiful, muscular, naked, young man. The hair on his head are shoulder-long and almost white, yet he looks to be in the prime of his youth. I want to look at him, properly, and I do. Fabian pats me gently on my shoulder and then steps aside.
Darius approaches and I can sense his gaze. The eyes are golden, shining like an evening sun. The eyebrows are auburn and thick, as is the growth upon his chest an his armpits. My knees are softening and I feel my manhood getting aroused and pushing hard against the inside of my jeans. Darius approaches, tall and strong. I want to kiss him, badly. I look at Fabian, he nods, smiling. And I lean myself against Darius’ chest. He grasps my crotch and kisses me. Passionately, yet sweetly. I feel like heaven or hell or both. I’m not Christian, so I’m allowed to like this. I do like it. Very much.
“Let’s go inside,” says Fabian and suddenly he also looks like a twenty-year-old…
Twenty-eight
The last couple leaves and I feel all sorts of liquid still upon my body. It’s mostly sweat and saliva. And mostly not mine. The red room reaks of love. Of making love. Smells like cum, Darius would say. He hasn’t attended this time. It is breeding time for unicorns, apparently. He didn’t say much more. But Fabian and I also wanted to do some breeding so we threw a breeding party. We had seventeen guys here, mostly couples or throuples. It is amazing how love is variable and untangled and wild and free and uplifting. Once you leave the shackles of society, that is. It has been ten years of my exile today. That’s how I call leaving home. This is my home now. I get everything I can possibly need or want, yet I got a job. I want to contribute the society. Also, working at the garden centre helps me clean my mind and recruit more guys for our love sessions.
I bet Fabian has already had a shower and is again in a suit or a tux, smelling of oud and vanilla. He may have changed his body but the customs remain. I love to linger in the liquids a little longer. The large bed is soaked with sweat and semen of the guys and so am I. I relish in this feeling. I won’t go to shower for another hour or so. The feel of DNAs mixing is something amazing. Also, Darius says it’s how magic was done back in the old days. I’ve never seen him perform any magic except fucking my brains out with his immense manhood. Fine with me, though. I did have a few guys before the pink house but never this much and this often. I love this. And when I don’t feel like it, I have my own floor, the top one. And there is no fucking. Only relax and cuddly place for me and my books and my plants and my PS. I love my life and I love myself. Took some time to shake off the parental curses. They moved though. Before they did, I used to wave from the windows whenever they passed by. And, just like the other guys that used to wave on me when I was younger, I too was often naked and not once had my ass been shoved with a dick or filled with cum at the very moment. And they knew. And I enjoyed it. They never reached out. Just took their toxicity and left town. A shame. I would have loved to tell them I forgave them. But maybe it is for the best.
I roll over to look out the window. I can see the tops of the apple trees, blossoming again. They do that every year and that’s one of the constant wonders. I fart a little. A cummy one. I take a bit with my finger and taste it. Salty and masculine, that’s Robert or Nico, or both. That’s one of the fleeting wonders. I smile and nib a bit more…
Everything is fine
In the house of lust.
No one draws a line
In the house of lust.
I see blooming trees
From the house of lust.
I burst into tears
In the house of lust.
