Centaurian Ch 03

All Rights Reserved © 2021, Rick Haydn Horst

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER THREE

Having opened the glass wall to the terrace during the night, at about eight o'clock that morning, to the faint sound of seagulls and ocean waves, Felix played his final encore after several overnight performances of the song Adrianus loved so much. Only then had he allowed himself an orgasm during his final bow.

Adrianus laid there for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation he felt both inside and out, wishing Felix could provide a series of performances for the rest of his life, keeping his body aflame with the stimulation of every thrust like a bellows blowing coals to keep them hot. He made him feel alive and close to another human being for the first time in a long while, and with every intimate moment, it drew him closer to the place inside him where the ability to feel care, love, and concern for another human being had lain fusty and fallow.

He rested his head on Felix's chest and wrapped an arm over him, holding onto him as though he might leave, and said to him, "Sexually speaking, you are a giant among men. Did you know that?"

"Am I?" asked Felix.

"Oh yes. You are out-of-this-world, as some might say."

Felix smiled.

"Now that you're no longer in me, though, I'm unsure that I've ever felt so empty." The moment he said those words, he sensed the depth of their truth, in more ways than the one that prompted it.

The sound of his voice spoke to Felix as much as the words. He had heard it before. He knew he could fulfill a need that people seemed incapable of satisfying any other way. He gave them an experience that made them feel alive, and for some, it was not much different from those who bungee jump or casually steal from a department store, but for others like Adrianus, Felix fulfilled their need for a human connection, but also something even less tangible, something akin to a state of well-being, something to tip the scales back to an otherwise inaccessible okayness, even if only for a moment.

Felix asked him, "May I speak with you about you? One human being to another."

"Sure."

"How long have you felt empty?"

Adrianus thought about it for a moment, hesitated to answer, and sighed. "A long time."

"The emptiness inside you...it cannot be filled from the outside. There is an external component to it, but there's only so much that someone outside you can do. Do you want to feel whole?"

"I don't know that I can; it's been so long. How old do you think I am?"

"28, maybe."

"I am far older, and if I told you how old, you would think I was crazy."

Felix shrugged. "Maybe, I already think you're crazy."

Adrianus laughed. "I probably am."

"So, how old are you? I promise to believe you."

"Out of fear, I've never told anyone this, but after my nine-hundred and seventy years, I feel as empty as a dry well. I don't know how to live my life anymore, and I just want it to stop."

Felix tipped Adrianus's head back to look him in the face to see if he were joking, and in the morning light, his eyes conveyed nothing but an unfathomable pain. "Okay," he said. "Well...I made a promise, and I will stick to it. You already know how unbelievable that is, but let's suggest for a moment that it isn't. After all these years, what's your biggest problem?"

"Being alone and watching everyone I care about die one day."

"So, you have needed some interpersonal consistency in your life. At the very least, you need a friend like you. Do you know of no one who is as long-lived as you?"

Adrianus thought about it for a moment. It never occurred to him that he could befriend Ronan as an alternative to killing him. The stability of a consistent friend could be what he needed to make life more tolerable. He must admit, he had never had that, but he wasn't sure. He felt he had lived too long, and Ronan's death may be his only means out of life itself. Either now or later, Ronan would have to die if Adrianus wanted to die. He would have to think about it.

"You told me you were only nineteen," said Adrianus, "how did you get so wise?"

"I've been told I have a young body and an old soul."

"I know that feeling, but I think you're a wiser man than me."

"Usually," said Felix, "when it comes to problem-solving, someone's objectivity is inversely proportional to their emotional proximity to the problem."

Adrianus stared at him for a moment with a raised brow. "You're obviously more than just a high-priced call-boy. How about we clean up, dress, have breakfast (on me), and we drop by a bank, so I can pay you? I'm not exactly poor; how does one hundred thousand dollars sound? In my opinion, you've more than earned it."

"A hundred thousand?"

"Someone could easily pay an in-demand violin virtuoso ninety thousand for a one-night performance for a group of people who collectively paid more than that to hear them. You gave me six performances over about nine hours and proffered some invaluable advice. I think one hundred thousand is fitting considering your skill level. You've given me a transcendental experience and spoiled me for anyone else. That's the problem with starting at the top, you know; anyone else will pale in comparison. How much do you usually charge for an overnight?"

"Just a thousand," he said. "A hundred thousand is so outrageous, I don't know that I should believe you, but I think you would pay too much if you did."

"You must not have heard of me, but I insist. For the first time in my life, I would pay someone what they're actually worth. You've helped me more than you can imagine. Besides, I suspect you waste that brain of yours. Think about going back to school."

As Felix showered first, Adrianus set a code to the room's safe, built into the cabinet that held the television. Not that he felt he couldn't trust Felix, but he had to hide the dagger, and just so there would be no question, he tossed his wallet in while he had it open. He saw it as taking a reasonable precaution, given the circumstances.

He joined Felix in the bathroom and entered the oversized stand-up shower. He stood at the end watching Felix rinse off.

The young man smiled. "I enjoy the hotel's water pressure."

"Sometimes, it's the simple things in life." Adrianus eyed him as the rivulets streamed down his sinewy body. "You are beautiful, Felix."

"So are you, especially for a 970-year-old. Why have you not aged?"

"That's a long story. I'll tell you over breakfast."

"I look forward to it." He kissed him as they swapped places, and Felix left the shower to dry off.

As Adrianus showered, he fantasized a crazy notion of taking Felix with him and giving him a better life than the one he had. But he wouldn't have wanted him to feel beholden to him; a healthy relationship of any kind needs a better foundation than that.

Over the sound of the water, he thought he heard voices, and at first, he figured it was the television, but then came the deep resonant metallic sound of something heavy ripping apart, and Felix yelled, "Elias!" He turned off the water and grabbed a towel as he ran into the room.

The only one there was the woman who inappropriately called herself

Happiness

wearing a red minidress, and Adrianus held his breath as he scanned the room. She stood at the dining table digging into his wallet. The wooden cabinet door and the door to the metal safe lay across the room, and the unsheathed dagger lay on the floor behind her. Felix's bellhop uniform remained draped across the chair where he laid it the night before, but he saw no sign of him. The pall of a terrible truth fell over him, and a weight settled into the pit of his stomach like concrete. She had destroyed that beautiful young man, the first person with whom he had made a connection in over a century, and with swelling anger, he shook as he asked, "Why did you kill him?" She said nothing as she pulled the pink card from his wallet. "WHY?" His voice could express no more than a fraction of the rage he felt.

"You need to remember why you're here," she said with a calm innocence, which only served to further infuriate Adrianus.

He moved toward her. "He was good; he didn't deserve it!" He picked up the dagger from the floor.

"He was of no consequence. Where did you get this card?"

He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. "I don't know," he said containing the rage that drove him to act. He snatched his wallet from the table in front of her. "I thought the card came from you."

He gripped the dagger as hard as he could and drew back his right arm. It seemed fitting that she should receive what she meant for Ronan. The woman was manipulating Adrianus, but she wasn't just the enemy, she was pure evil, and you don't give evil a fighting chance. He thought to himself, "For Felix." He gave her one sharp jab in the lower back, and the blade's tip pierced her skin. In the moment of her destruction, time slowed, and a spherical shockwave punched him in the gut as it pushed his body away. As it expanded, it shattered like glass everything else in its path as the leading edge propelled him backward through the wall. Small chunks of metal and concrete accompanied him as he cannonballed through the open air, away from the hotel, and over the beach. As it all receded, he watched the wave eject part of the building upward and outward, but also, as the sphere of destruction continued to expand, a concave depression broadened and deepened, compacting entire floors of the structure, crunching downward and away from him as the invisible wave demolished the building from the top down. As the wave lost energy, his momentum took over, carrying him a bit further, but eventually, he dropped into the water ten yards from the shore.

He awoke naked on the beach with someone trying to resuscitate him, blowing air into his lungs, and for a moment, he thought it was Felix kissing him. He coughed and gasped trying to catch his breath from the gut punch.

The man who rescued him from the water had jogged the beach that morning. He removed the wet zip hoodie he wore and covered his naked body with it. "Are you okay?" he asked. Adrianus heard his muffled voice through the high pitch note in his ears from the percussive blast. "I saw you land in the water."

Within a few minutes, Adrianus's body would simply return to its previous state, just as it had whenever he had faked his own death. With stiff muscles, he struggled to turn onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, trying to comprehend what had happened. He could see building debris scattered around the beach and several floors of the hotel had disappeared from the detonation that he knew began when and where he stabbed the woman. The wind from the sea moved the dust cloud further onto the island. He gazed downward. One fist gripped his waterlogged wallet, but the fingers of the other still strangled the remains of the dagger, the blade either broken off or destroyed. He sat with his feet beneath him. Shaking, he threw his soggy wallet onto the sand and made a slow, painful effort to peel the fingers from the metal hilt in his hand.

"You are incredibly lucky," said the man. "You look like you don't have a scratch on you, but you probably should go to the hospital anyway."

In breathless gasps, he said to the man, "Thank you, for your help."

Knowing that not only was Felix gone, but his actions had killed many innocent people that morning. It caused him to look at himself and his life through the tears running down his cheeks. He had no idea who or what that woman was, but surely, she wasn't alone, and he swore in the name of Felix Raposo and all those innocents who died that morning, that he would oppose them. "I need to find Stallion," he whispered to himself.

-------

Dolos had tricked Ronan. Zipping and unzipping the bag would change the contents of the clothing, but no matter how many times he tried, he always had light-colored pants. With considerable aplomb, Ronan accepted that he couldn't do much to rein in his Centaurian appendage, and apparently, Dolos insisted that it remain noticeable. As they dressed in far more stylish clothing, their pants fit a tad tight, but acceptable—Ronan's in light gray and Liam's in faded, distressed indigo. And like Liam's light blue shirt, the white fabric of Ronan's properly sized button-up gave a subtle display in the broadness of his armor-like pectorals, thick shoulders, and bulging biceps with a tapered fit at the waist.

In the bedroom, and nearly ready to go, Liam watched Ronan finish slipping the belt through the loops in his pants. "So, why do you think Chiron increased your size by forty pounds?"

"I'm uncertain. He must have believed we needed the extra strength for some reason."

"Just how strong are you?"

Ronan pointed to the kitchen in the other room. "Do you have a case knife you can spare?"

"Sure." He went to the drawer, retrieved one, and handed it to him.

He watched Ronan, thinking he would just bend the knife as though it were rubber, but instead, he took the stainless-steel knife and began to reform it as though it were nothing more than sculpting putty. He flattened the handle and spread it out to make it roughly uniform in width and thickness to the blade. He folded the metal over on the short side, turning it into a slender and relatively flat bar. He then began to roll it up into the spiral shape of a snail shell or nautilus. When he finished, he tossed it in the air and said, "Here you go. Catch."

Liam caught it but bounced it back and forth between his hands. "It's hot!" He rushed it to the sink and cooled it under the faucet while looking it over. "That's the most incredible thing I've ever seen."

"I watched Henri do that, and he wasn't even half my size. So, I don't know how strong I am. I hope that doesn't scare you."

Liam dried off the bent hunk of metal with a dish towel, and he thought about it for a moment. He slipped it into his pocket, opened the refrigerator, and took out an egg. "Now it's your turn to catch."

Ronan caught the egg firmly but never broke the shell. He held it up. "What's this for?"

"Well, you're no Lennie Small, so that's good." Liam retrieved the egg from Ronan. "I figure, if you have the control necessary to catch an egg without breaking it, then I have no reason to fear you."

"Chiron has had several lifetimes of great strength to grow accustomed to handling delicate objects, so I have no problem with that."

"I see." He returned the egg to the refrigerator. "Let's get out of here."

They stepped outside to the breezeway with their bags, and Liam inserted his key into the deadbolt to lock up. They descended the staircase, and Liam unlocked his Jeep when a sudden noise like an enormous nearby sonic boom shook the ground and vibrated through the air. A strong gust of wind sent dust and sand through the breezeway in front of the vehicle.

"What the hell was that?" asked Liam.

And then came the falling debris. Dust, detritus, and larger fragments of building material rained from the sky, up to six blocks from the epicenter of the explosion, and all around them, they could hear the bits fall on every surface. Liam noticed Mrs. Novak gazing out her window. He spoke across the top of the Jeep's hood. "Didn't Dolos say that Adrianus stayed at the Cerulean Sea Hotel?"

"Yeah."

Liam pointed. "The boom came from that direction; the hotel's maybe three blocks away."

The air grew hazier. "Quick, get in," said Ronan, "this air is dangerous." He laid his bag into the floorboard of the passenger side and tapped the vent control on the air conditioner. "Keep the vent closed until you get away from here; don't breathe this air."

"Where are you going?"

"I will assume that people need my help, and I'm going to give it to them." He flashed a momentary smile. "The wind is blowing our direction, so go north. I will meet you at the bench shaped like a mooring cleat at the Haulover rescue station."

"Do you think this has anything to do with Adrianus?"

"It could, but the meaning behind it is unclear."

"Be careful."

"As careful as I can be. See you soon."

As Liam drove to the right out of the parking lot, Ronan turned left and sprinted around the block toward the source of the mayhem. People were racing away from the Cerulean Sea Hotel, either on foot or in their vehicles. The sound of sirens told of the imminent arrival of police, but the fire department, rescue workers, and ambulances would soon follow. One officer had already stopped to set up temporary roadblocks and direct traffic away from the building.

Ronan had to circumnavigate a mound of fallen debris and wrecked vehicles that lay on the road along the front. As people trickled from the entrance, he rushed inside. The air held a haze of powder, the ceiling had cracked, plaster had fallen, and the incident left the lobby in disarray. He could hear someone crying and calling for help. The stone check-in desk had cracked from the vibration of the explosion and had fallen onto the foot of the clerk. One of her coworkers, who happened to be her husband, tried to shift it enough to free her, but it weighed two tons, and it wouldn't budge. He had already tied his belt around her lower leg, above the crush point.

They coughed from the bad air. "My wife is stuck. We need a jack."

Ronan shook his head. "When I lift, you pull."

"You can't move it."

To the man's astonishment, Ronan slipped the fingers of his right hand beneath the granite slab and lifted it with little effort.

As the man picked up his wife, he asked Ronan, "Who are you?"

"My name is Stallion," he said. "Are you okay to carry her out?"

Once he indicated he could, Ronan hurried off to help someone else without waiting for or expecting any thanks.

Meanwhile, in their desperate need to get away from the scene of the explosion, Liam had to contend with drivers speeding and blowing through stop signs and red lights. By the time he reached Fifth Street, the air had cleared, and the panicked drivers took the causeway to leave the island. The farther north he drove, the day seemed less eventful for most everyone on the road and the sidewalks.

He hadn't eaten breakfast, so as he waited in the drive-through of his favorite smoothie joint for his mixture of yogurt, whey, berries, fruit, and beef liver, he tuned his radio to a local station, and they had stopped playing music to cover the events happening at the scene. As Liam expected, it was the same hotel. The discussion had the inevitable mention of a possible terrorist attack, but they had no evidence for that and admitted as much.

Back out on the road, he continued north, and at the Haulover Beach car park, he picked a spot in the mostly empty lot. He used his phone to livestream a local television channel's coverage of the scene while he waited for over an hour before carrying Ronan's bag to the rescue station. He rushed through the tunnel when it disrupted his cell connection while watching the livestream on the way.

-------

Trace Hawkins knew that he got his job as the Chief of Operations at the Haulover Rescue Station because people found him attractive. At 32 years of age, with his fit body, dark blond hair (that would lighten from the sun), tan skin, and a classically handsome face, it wouldn't matter who else wanted the job with equal education and experience, they always seemed to pick him. He considered his striking appearance as almost a superpower. It drew people's attention, seemed to overshadow those around him, and he had never met anyone like himself. Looks alone hadn't gotten him the job, of course. His curriculum vitae had him perfectly qualified for it, and the fact that he had more than a few brain cells to rub together, natural leadership abilities, and an affable temperament hadn't hurt any. But for all that Trace had going for him, he had a serious problem. Trace lived in quiet desperation as a gay man trapped in a straight man's life. He grew up with a check mark beside every box for the common causes of

Closet-Life

. The top three, close-minded parents, raised in a Pentecostal church, and the prevalence of toxic masculinity in his childhood home and surrounding culture, exampled the worst of them.