Page 42 of Retrograde

There’s barely any wind and almost no sound, no chirping of birds, none of the indeterminate little sounds made by wildlife and nature. Below us lies nothing but death.

I take my camera out of its bag, screw the telephoto lens on, and start snapping pictures as I walk along the edge. I crouch at the perfect spot, leaning over. I’m so absorbed in getting the frame just right that I don’t detect Aron’s presence behind me until his fingers close firmly around my waist.

“What are you doing?” I yelp, lowering the camera and turning around to look at him.

He’s sitting on his heels behind me, wind gently tousling his hair, the bulk of his shoulders and chest crowding his leather jacket.

“What do you think? Spotting you. No way in hell do you get to fall off a cliff.”

Ah, right. Makes sense. That would be too nice a death for me.

Not that he needs to bother. I’m used to leaning over the roofs of buildings, familiar with my body’s centre of gravity and immune to vertigo. But I don’t tell him to get his hands off me. What’s the point? It’s not like he’d listen to me. If anything, my protests would likely encourage him to put his hands where I want them even less than around my waist.

Before I can stop them, my thoughts return for the hundredth time to what happened yesterday. His glistening cock between his fingers, the feel of his balls in my hand, his hungry eyes ... and my embarrassing, purely physical reaction to it all. I escape the memory by fleeing into one that is newer and even worse.

That moment of complete weakness I had during the drive here. I can’t believe I held his hand. He is my captor. My enemy. A man I’ve been terrified of for years.

But we were going very fast, the road whipping underneath the wheels in a blur. I was scared and desperate for comfort, starved for a sliver of solidarity from another human being. When he touched my hand, I reacted on pure instinct and without thinking. I couldn’t help myself.

My eyes water until I can hardly see anything through the viewfinder. I miss Corrado so damn much. More than I’ve missed fresh air and my clothes, more than I miss normal food and a bed to sleep in and hot showers. I miss having a friend. I miss contact with someone who doesn’t hate me.

So much so that my heart can no longer take it, and my mind has started to protect me by playing tricks on me, convincing me in my weakest moments that there is some twisted kinship between Aron and me.

I know I mustn’t give in to that illusion, not even for one minute. Aron hates me for what I’ve done, for what I represent. And I resent his cruelty just as much as he revels in it.

But why didn’t he swat my hand away? Why did he reciprocate the touch?

Probably to fuck with my head even more than he already has. Just as there’s no light without darkness, there’s no darkness without light. There’s no better way to prevent me from growing numb to my misery than to grant me occasional respite from it.

I wipe my face off inconspicuously as I stand up. Aron nods at me and leads me around the moss-covered castle ruin to his newest creation.

“It’s not my best work,” he tells me as a rhythmic creak reaches my ears. “Just something quick and simple this time. There’s only so much you can do with two patrolmen.”

We round the corner, and my eyes finally land on the source of the noise.

“Oh wow. That’s new for sure.”

“As I said, it’s not my be⁠—”

“Careful.” I give him a pointed look that stops him in his tracks. “I could almost think it matters to you that I like it.”

“Well ...” He shrugs, the hint of a coy smile playing on his face. “Do you?”

I scan his creation with my eyes, already thinking of angles and framing. A wooden swing bar, still smelling of fresh construction. The two men—long and thin, and short and rounder—hanging from hooks underneath their ribs. With wires running along the length of their legs, they are fixed in a sitting pose like they’re on a swing. Blood is leaking from their mouths—punctured lungs most likely. Both their eyes are closed. They’re either unconscious or already dead.

“I do. It’s playful and horrifying. It will make a good image.”

“A pile of shit would make a good image in your photos,” he remarks with on-the-nose nonchalance, like he wants to make it extremely clear he’s not trying to flatter me.

Not knowing how to respond, I step away from him and screw on the correct lens. I get started, trying this angle and that, until I decide that the best one is from the ground looking sharply up. I lie down on my stomach, so close to the hanging corpses that I can smell their blood as well as their soiled pants.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Aron’s voice sounds from behind me, pulling me out of the zone just as I’ve found my groove.

“Doesn’t what bother me?” I turn around sharply, only to find him staring at my ass without even bothering to hide it.

Am I imagining it, or is the front of his trousers tenting? Oh my god, why am I even thinking about that?

“Dead people. Mutilated people. People in pain,” he elaborates without lifting his eyes, licking his lips.