The Cure 

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what he sees next to him draws him and repels him all in the same 
breath. 
draws him because the older man is the antithesis of himself: 
broad, expansive, outgoing to his shy, little nature.  repels him 
because of why he is here.  dangling his legs over the side of the 
bed 
he waits, patiently.

the older man strokes his silver/black beard and looks over at the 
boy.  he's maybe eighteen, maybe nineteen, at the outside twenty, 
and of all the young men he's had in this room this one is the 
quietest, the most introspective.   and he isn't afraid.  there's a 
quiet fire in those eyes.

'why are you here, boy?'
the voice comes out deep, rumbling; it sounds like the voice of a 
bear to the young man - if bears could talk.  he contemplates the 
question for a moment and then replies: 'because there's no where 
else 
for me to go, sir.'

of all the young ones so far he's the only willing participant and the
older man wants to keep this dialogue going for as long as he can, to 
find out what's going on here.   more than meets the eye, probably.
'how so?'  he asks, quietly, putting his arm around the boy's neck. 
hesitation, then: 'got no family, sir, no friends, no job, no place to
belong to, no god to believe in...I’ve just got my disease.'
'how...bad is your disease?'
'getting worse.   physician Morton gave me maybe three more months to 
live, sir...so I need your help.'
'you know why you're here, though?  officially, I mean?' the big man 
asks, his hand absently stroking the boys arm.
it's then that the young man does something that the older one hadn't 
expected of him; he bows his head and whispers, almost inaudibly, as 
if he's revering something, or praying to something.   'you...eat the 
boys they select.'
he gets down onto his knees, in front of the big man.
'please don't turn me away, sir, please...'
and then the thing that makes the decision for the man who is more 
than six hundred years old comes...as he's kneeling, the boy begins 
to 
cough, raising his little hands to his mouth he tries to stop the 
coughing...but when he removes his hands, there's blood in them. 
he's dying *much* faster than Avery Morton predicted...wasting away 
before his eyes.  the fire in his eyes clouds, dies, as tears roll 
down the young man's cheeks.
'please...' he says, softly.

instead of the rumbling, pleasant voice, a gruff, almost trembling 
voice emits from the old man.  'get off your knees, boy.'
obediently, the young one sits down, arms around his knees, waiting
patiently to be turned away, but that doesn't happen.  instead another
question comes.
'where did you find out about me, son?'
the young man thinks.   got to fight the fog at the edges of memory. 
got to get the answer.   got to be obedient.
'I...an outcast...one of the priests who live in the wood told me,
sir...his name was...' and his voice fails him as it trails away to
nothing.  'George Thurman,' the older man finishes for him.  dumbly he
nods.   coughs.   more blood.

for the first time the older man takes time to actually look at the 
small young man on the floor.   he's short, perhaps five foot, he has 
a beard, which, to all intents and purposes, looks brown.   his hair 
is cut short, and that too is brown, at a guess.  because the fire is 
obscuring them, he'd say the eyes are the same color.  now his gaze 
drifts downward.   there are the beginnings of chest hairs poking 
through the tunic, which is far too big for the little body.  his 
hands are small, bony, but they look strong.  Because he's afraid, 
the little one won't meet his eyes, instead the [supposed] brown eyes 
dart this way and that, looking over the room, but never looking into 
his own.  he gets up, soaks a towel in the font and goes over to the 
young man.  kneeling down he takes first his left hand, then his 
right hand and wipes the blood away. 
the somber brown eyes meet his and the boy says, softly: 'no one has 
ever done that for me...'
he stands up, offering his right hand, 'come with me...I want to show 
you something.'

standing up the young man is surprised to find that the big hand of 
the older man is holding his little one.   slowly he goes where he is 
bid, through passages of the house...down stairs, until they come to 
a door, which is closed.

he opens the door to the part of the house that no-one has ever seen 
and leads the boy inside, closing the door behind him. 
'I’ve...never shown this to anyone before, but you need this more 
than I do...and I want to give something to you before...' the boy 
nods and stands, in awe...watching the beauty before him.

the colors are unbelievable...nothing he's ever seen has come close 
to this, as he watches, an incredible sense of peace begins to blanket
everything he feels: the pain, the anguish of dying, the fear of the 
big man behind him.  it all drains away.   he's heard of places like 
this, but they are rare and he never thought he'd get to see one in 
his lifetime, it being the short span that it has turned out to be. 
he goes limp, suspended in spirit, but not in body and as he watches 
the gold, red, amber, yellow, green, purple, blue anoint him.  he 
falls to the floor, kneels in front of this vision.
then the white light that he's only ever read about in books and 
which is rarer still than this gate, the soul gate, falls upon him 
and washes away the last traces of fear and doubt and pain.

now awed himself, the big man watches as the little ghost of a boy is
washed in the light of the gate that transfers souls...he doesn't 
know what it means, but knows that from now on everything is 
different, everything has changed.
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part ii:
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the young man gets up and walks over to me, his eyes are no longer 
filled with either fire, or mist, but with incredible peace.   he 
reaches down to me and takes first my right hand and then my left and 
wipes both of them with the wet towel, which he has been carrying 
since we left my room.
'no one has ever done that for me...' I whisper.
he nods.   he understands.   after six hundred years there's more than
enough blood on my hands, but it hasn't been blood I’ve wanted.   I’m 
a reluctant deliverer of souls.   tonight, all of that ends, though.
'I don't know what to do for you,' I say, more in gratitude than 
anything else.
he smiles down at me and replies, softly, 'just hold me, father.' I 
nod and obey, reaching up to where he is and putting my large arms 
around him, drawing him close, feeling the warm body rest against 
mine.  his arms go around my waist and I think about what I have to 
do...later, not now.   I nuzzle him, gently, until butterfly kisses 
begin to fall on my forehead, then my closed eyes, then the tip of my 
nose, which I smile at.  finally his lips reach mine and time stands 
still.

I stand up and lift him, as if I would a child, carrying him in my 
arms and to my bed...very gently I lay him down, then I lie down 
beside him, reaching over to put my great arms around him, enfolding 
him.  he curls up against me, back to my gut, right hand on my right 
leg and left hand in my right hand.   for hours we talk, watching the 
fire dance in the fireplace, his voice is soft, but almost tuneful, 
as if he's singing.  he tells me about living as an outcast, the 
disease. 
anything and everything and I find, to my dismay, that I’m falling 
in love with him.   I don't want to do what I have to, but I know 
that if I don't this job...this curse...whatever it is will never 
end.

it's in one of the lulls in the conversation that I begin to make 
love to him, whimpering softly with each stroke, because it feels 
like the last...I’m afraid of that last stroke, knowing that it will 
be time then.
he takes my kisses and gives them back to me, pressing 
his lips and tongue into mine.   time stretches and scenes blur into 
each other, his hands in my hands, his little body curled up on top 
of mine, my large body on top of his, thrusting, as gently as I can, 
then faster and faster...finally, his smiling face and peaceful eyes 
look into mine from his perch on my chest. 
he reminds me of a dog, obedient, benevolent, gentle.

'father,' he whispers.
'I know,' I reply.   it's time.

he sits up and looks down at me one last time.   I can imagine what 
he's seeing.  I am by no means small.   my hair is a mixture of gray 
and black, which it was when I took this office, at age fifty.  my 
eyes are silver-gray, my face is round and framed by a beard that's 
gray mixed with black and that refuses to be shaved.   my arms are 
thick and covered in hair which tapers out towards the broad expanse 
of my hands.   I keep thinking that my neck is that of a bull, and 
it's hard not to.  my chest is covered in a deep layer of silver-
black fur, which also covers my vast gut. 
the hair continues down my legs, which I liken to tree-trunks 
sometimes...

I stand and reach out to him, take him in my arms and hold him, 
kissing him, softly one last time before...without thinking my hands 
wrap themselves around his waist and my lips open wider, wider, 
encircling his mouth, then his beard.  I want this to be over soon. 
stroking his sides, I make my lips bigger, encircling his nose. 
then, increasing the size of my mouth again I cover his eyes, 
blotting out the fire and tickling the sides of his ears...stopping 
myself from reflexively choking on his head hair.  I take in the 
crown of his head, then the top half is inside my mouth.   I’m pretty 
sure he can hear the gentle sucking noises as I caress his ears with 
my tongue...trying to keep him occupied, I let my tongue play into 
his mouth, searching out his own tongue, curling around it, licking 
it...
slipping my mouth down further, I collar his neck.   now I start to 
swallow his head down into my throat, feeling it widen out as his 
head enters.   my hands are still caressing his sides when I widen my 
mouth still further to get his shoulders into my mouth.  being as 
gentle, but as stern as I can, I pin his hands to his sides and 
swallow again. 
his head is nearly, nearly out of my throat now.   I imagine my 
heart beating somewhere near his left ear and hope to god that it's a 
soothing sound.  I stop, breathing mentally and counting to ten. 
this next part is the most difficult.  swallowing, gently, I resume 
feeding him into my mouth, watching as his back makes it's way in. 
I don't want to think about slowing the process down by sexually
stimulating him, but know that in a sense it'll help to calm him 
down, so I rub my rough tongue against his nipples and get them 
erect. 
then I let my tongue dance down to his belly-button, playing with 
it, teasing it.  I close my eyes and hate myself.
feeding more of him into me, I get to his genitalia, reaching my 
tongue down and stroking the head of his penis with my tongue, 
willing it to come to life, but not going so far as to overstimulate 
him. 
the top half of his shoulders are down my throat now and his little, 
lithe stomach is making it's way across my tongue and down...it's 
when all of his nether regions are in my mouth that I let him do what 
he must, feeling him thrust himself against my tongue.   I swallow 
hard and try to stop the burning in my eyes, knowing that if the 
tears come now I’ll never go through with it.
his upper thighs and legs make their way into my mouth, while the
swallowing has forced his head into my cavernous belly...now his arms
are free and it's as if he has sensed my distress, because from 
inside of me comes the gentlest of touches.   the touches seem to say 
'I’m OK...don't worry about me...'
the tears are threatening to be a problem, so I speed up, swallowing 
his lower legs like two strings of spaghetti.
it's only at this last bit of him that my mouth returns to its normal 
size and closes.   I keep swallowing hard, making sure that all of 
him makes it's way to my stomach as quickly as possible.  when that's 
done I sit down, belly full and heavy, yet somehow feeling so empty 
inside.
it's at this point that the sun begins to rise outside, painting the 
sky red...blood...While feeling the warmth on my face and watching as 
the fire burns down to embers I let myself do what I’ve never done in 
six hundred and eleven years.  like a baby I rock back and forth and 
cry, feeling my final cargo move inside of me.

while I’m sitting there, too afraid to fall asleep, lest I see him in 
my dreams, the sun turns white outside my room...as I watch the gold, 
red, amber, yellow, green, purple, blue anoint me and a voice that I 
never heard when the young man was downstairs in the room of the gate 
of souls whispers inside of my head, like a soft rainfall.  'this one 
is yours,' the voice says, softly, 'as you have cured him, so I cure 
you.   go now...you are free, you need not transfer souls anymore...'
with that the white light fades and the colors from the gate recede, 
but they never fade...from deep inside me a fire begins to burn, it's 
like nothing I’ve ever felt before...and suddenly he's there, inside 
of me, inside my mind, smiling, peaceful.
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part iii:
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wherever he goes I look out of his eyes...and wherever we go the 
lights follow us, anointing all of the things we see...
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[everyone seems to have the sickness/so everyone seems to need the 
cure/]
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