Centaurian - Chapter 1
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Synopis: When an unusual man comes into the protection of Officer Liam Phillips, Liam doesn't know what he's in for. His world gets broadened and turned upside down in this adventure of love, sex, gods, a one-quarter equine, and a vacation he will never forget.
Centaurian, By Rick Haydn Horst
Chapter 1
June 20th
Henri Estalon could never have found the perfect location in Miami simply by looking. An inner voice told him to use the southernmost point of Key Biscayne. So, on that warm and windy summer solstice, he and Ronan would allow the transfer to happen there, accepting that events would unfold as they should.
Eight o'clock had sped toward them, but the sun had yet to touch the horizon in that so-called, "golden hour"---which would last 32 minutes---before the sunset at 8:14. So, they waited in nail-biting anticipation upon the concrete sea wall staring out over the water.
"The world is a far more complicated place than in my day," said Henri. "To lose the personal memories from your past in 2016 is a frightening prospect. People can verify things these days; you can't just make stuff up anymore. And not to deter you---as the decision is yours---but have you the will to become the man you envision? None of the others ever drew such attention, and you must endure the repercussions for a thousand years."
"I'm sure," said Ronan. "I don't know that anything I do will change much, but I want to make a difference somehow."
"You will bring something quite new to Chiron's unique existence; you are a very different sort of man from myself and the others that came before you."
"You mean because I identify as gay."
"Well, yes, there's that...but then, perhaps, it's just because I came from an era so far removed from this one, and there's only so much a man can do to stay current. At this stage, I do feel a bit too disconnected from modernity to function well here. I suppose that's why Prometheus wisely insisted a change must occur every thousand years. In the end, Admissarius probably realized that too."
"Are you afraid?" Ronan asked.
"No, and when your time comes, neither will you be." He glanced down at Ronan's lap, and he laughed a little at the skinny young man. "I don't know that your plan with the oversized bathing suit will work. It won't hurt to try, but Admissarius and I were both naked when the transfer happened, and...well...let's just say one must experience it to understand why, but I will wear mine as an experiment, and we'll see what happens."
"You told me I would pass out. I just thought it would be better if I weren't naked when that happens."
"You will be half Chiron and therefore one-quarter equine, so Stallion by name, stallion by nature. An intellectual or not, Chiron would have dealt with a deplorable sense of inadequacy as a pure human, so you both have a say. You agreed to this though, so you'll just have to live with it as the rest of us have."
Turning his head, Ronan checked both directions of the bicycle path behind them. "You're sure this is the spot?"
Henri nodded. "I believe, we came here for more than just the view, only Prometheus knows why, but I feel deep within me the importance of your presence here. So, fear not, the stars will reach their position, and it will happen as it should."
Ronan held Henri's hand. "I have loved you like a father. I want you to know that."
"I know. In 1046, I had one biological child, and I would have outlived them...and my grandchildren if they had any...and any great-grandchildren, and so on."
"Can we have children? I got the impression that couldn't happen."
"Admissarius gave me that impression as well, but it happened just the once, and it never happened again. It was not something I intended; due to the nature of this life, I couldn't stay. And while we're not expressly forbidden to tell anyone anything, the fewer the better. What would I have said to them? One day the child or any of their progeny could turn eighty, and I would still be thirty. This life is not an easy one. It holds many incredible experiences that most people could never imagine, counterbalanced by enough heartbreak to make you question if it's even worth it. But then, I met you. You're the only one that I've had the opportunity to love like a son, and I couldn't be prouder of you. You have made the last thousand years worthwhile, and I love you very much."
Ronan squeezed his hand. "I don't recall you telling me you once had a girlfriend or was she your wife?"
"My wife. Her name was Rosine, and she was so beautiful. She used to call me `her angele', her angel."
Ronan had a wistful smile. "That's nice."
"I could never see myself as she saw me, but she sensed my unusual nature, but she wasn't the only one. Over the centuries, many people have sensed it; those are typically the people you can trust."
They watched the sun in the distance as it met the sea. It had begun, so they left the wall and moved to the middle of the pathway.
"I don't want you to go," said Ronan, hugging Henri tightly.
"I have no choice," he said in sympathy, "and despite how you feel at this moment, you don't need me anymore. It's time for you to take my place."
Ronan hesitated to ask, "Will this hurt?"
"You've been afraid to ask me that question."
"Yeah."
"For me," he said, "I don't know. For you, this will be quite painful for a few moments, but you'll be unconscious for the worst of it. Fortunately, you won't have to carry the memory of seeing me go, and I suspect that would hurt you more than anything else."
They stood there in one another's arms, prepared for a painful parting, watching the beauty of the sinking sun with the roar of the ocean and the wind in their ears, a scene that on any other occasion would impart a sense of awe, and the mystery about the simple joys of being alive.
When the sun had only one half left, Henri said a little breathless, "I'm beginning to feel hot." He pulled Ronan more tightly to him. "Not long now." When the last moments came, wisps of a fiery glow emerged from Henri and swirled around him. He brought his mouth near Ronan's ear. "Remember to keep the love in your heart and the image in your mind."
Henri's body began to shudder, and the moment the sun vanished, a brilliant, white-hot light passed between them, and a searing burn ripped through Ronan's body. His mouth gaped in a silent scream, and his arms---spread as they were---no longer wrapped Henri in a loving embrace. Keeping their chests together, Henri held him aloft when Ronan's legs left the ground. Every nerve blistering like he had become fire itself. The pain overwhelmed his senses, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.
His strength failing him, Henri used the last he had to lower Ronan's naked body to the ground. He stood over him only for a moment and gazed upon the young man whom he had loved for many years. He had time for three words, "Goodbye, my son." His feet no longer held him, and as he tipped away from Ronan, the wind caught bits of ash until he crashed upon the ground in a billowing plume carried on the breeze to the sea, and by morning, the remainder would lay indistinguishable from the inconsequential dust beneath any passing jogger's feet.
June 21st
Officer Liam Phillips would never procrastinate with the snooze button for an extra five minutes of sleep, nor would he set all his clocks ahead ten minutes to compensate for a lifetime of tardiness. In his perpetual best-foot-forward attitude, for five days of every week, when the alarm went off, his feet would hit the floor for his morning exercise in the gym up the street. Unlike a stereotypical cop, Officer Phillips stayed fit. He never knew when he needed any specific ability; not that his job on Key Biscayne consisted of the frequent pulling of victims from burning vehicles, but he could manage it with ease if the occasion should arise, and to him, that mattered most.
Five years earlier, he started work at the station on the key. At that time, he moved into a one-bedroom, South-Point apartment on Collins Avenue, but he never settled in. The apartment's empty white walls lacked a personal touch, and a veritable Klotski of square boxes holding much of his past, all packed and taped with care, remained stacked against the dining room wall, a puzzle that needed solving for why he had yet to make a home there.
After a morning workout, he ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, oatmeal, plain yogurt, fruit, and coffee while he caught up on the news and weather report, followed by readying himself for work, singing along with whatever song suited his mood from the eclectic array of music on his smartphone.
He used the towel to defog the bathroom mirror to the metronomic beat of "I Love a Rainy Night" and lathered up for a quick shave of his sun-kissed skin. As a Florida Police Officer, they had regulations against facial hair, and that made grooming more complicated for him. His dark beard hair would blend into his chest hair if he let it, but with manscaping all the rage, he had a plethora of options for trimmers to fight the growth that sought to emerge from beneath his t-shirts, and he kept his trimmed to the collarbone.
He leaned close to the mirror as he donned his contact lenses. His mother, grandmother, classmates, past boyfriends, and anyone who ever got close enough to his face would comment about his eyes. Strangers would often ask if they were natural, as most anyone else would have to fake the cornflower blue that garnered so much attention in his youth.
He parked his Jeep at the station, stared at the building, and smiled to himself. He enjoyed being a police officer on Key Biscayne. Some might say he enjoyed it a little too much.
Uniformed and ready, he sauntered into the department at 7:54 AM to check-in and get a cup of coffee, as everyone did.
"Good morning, short-timer," said Rodriguez at the front desk.
"Hey! I figured you would get back out there today."
"No. They removed the cast and said my arm was fine, but here I am for seven more days of light-duty; the doctor insisted. I cover for you starting next week. And speaking of that, Sergeant Watkins told me you've not taken a vacation in 3 years, and they made you use it or lose it. What is wrong with you?"
Phillips laughed. "Isn't every day a vacation when you love your job?"
"No," stated Sergeant Watkins who had walked up behind him, shaking his head at such a ridiculous idea. "And since this is your last day before you begin a prescribed 6 weeks of workaholic rehabilitation---and I know we'll get so little out of you today---I'm going to offer it to you again, if you want to take a personal day and just go, no one will blame you."
Phillips knew the sergeant was right, he had nearly turned into a 28-year-old workaholic. Every chance he could work, he did, but he knew he needed the time away from it. However, for the past three years and a reason he couldn't explain, he never took any.
"That's tempting," he said. "Will you give me some time today to think about it?"
"Sure, and I have a crap job to help convince you. A call just came in. Bill Baggs just opened, and the first jogger of the day says there's a naked drunk man passed out on the trail at the south tip. I want you to go assess the situation, and call an ambulance if it's warranted, but text Rodriguez and let us know if he's covered in puke. Right now, the `puke pool' has set the odds at 20 to 1, and as I lost the last two times, this one better be puke-free; I need to recoup my losses."
"No problem," said Phillips. "Depending on his location, I might get a patrol car stuck there. I'll take my Jeep." Phillips hurried out the door.
Key Biscayne would get the occasional passed out drunk. Sometimes it was an actual resident, but usually, someone from elsewhere would show up and be a poor reminder to rich residents of the realities of the world. Residents wouldn't even bother to call 9-1-1 when they saw one, they had no desire to draw attention to unsightliness. The locals paid such high taxes they expected never to see drunks on the streets or anywhere else. So, they insisted that the police give them a surreptitious `bum's rush' and take them off the key.
Phillips would find the location in question seven minutes down Crandon Boulevard. The Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, home of the decommissioned Cape Florida Lighthouse, presented an opportunity for birdwatching, jogging, family gatherings, and the like.
On arrival, three people, including the caller, hovered over what he could see was a man sprawled on the ground. He cautiously pulled past them to provide access to the cargo area and parked the Jeep. The naked man lay in an odd position, his legs partially tucked under him with his knees off to the side, and his arms straight out from his body. The caller had found a red solo cup on the side of the pathway and placed it over the man's genitals to keep people from gawking, a thoughtful idea, if not wholly sanitary.
"Thank you very much," Phillips told them, and insisted they move along to let him do his job, and they left. He pulled on a pair of blue gloves from a pouch on his belt giving the man an assessment of his appearance. No doubt about it, the guy was attractive. He had a rectangular face with masculine features, and if he were a drunk, his skin showed no sign of it. So, he wasn't the usual drunk.
"Hey, buddy," he tried to shake him a little to awaken him. "Can you hear me?"
The man was unconscious, but he had a regular pulse and was breathing fine. The pupils of his cognac-colored eyes responded normally with a flashlight. He opened his mouth to find beautiful, straight white teeth. He had no sign of alcohol on his breath, or anything up his nose. Overall, his skin looked healthy without discoloration and wasn't cool to the touch.
He texted Rodriguez. [No puke. Not a drunk, but unconscious. No time for an ambulance. Taking him to Mercy.]
He received a text that only read [Acknowledged].
He opened the rear of his vehicle and lowered the seats to enlarge the cargo space. In his attempt to hoist him into the Jeep, he noticed the man had a bold, half-finished black tattoo across his back---shoulder to shoulder---that when complete, would read "STALLION" in a fancy but legible serif font. When he picked him up a bit more, the solo cup fell and out spilled the reason the woman bothered.
"Oh, wow... You know what you are, don't ya, big fella?" He struggled to get him into the vehicle, but he got him there. He covered him with the blanket he always kept there.
On the way, he called Mercy Hospital---hands-free of course. He had a number he could call for emergency use. He relayed what he could from his cursory observations. "I am Officer Liam Phillips from the Key Biscayne Police Department. I'm bringing to the emergency entrance a man about 27 years old, maybe 6-feet-tall. He's fit, about 190 pounds. He is breathing. His pulse is good. His pupils respond normally, but he's unconscious and unresponsive. He has no apparent drug use and may have been exposed to the elements all night, but his skin is warm to the touch."
As it was still early, the hospital wasn't too busy, so they took the man back immediately, and checked his vitals. His temperature was normal; his blood pressure was 117 over 78. The man's nurse named Lidia Morales felt in his hair to find any bumps or contusions on his head.
"Where did you find him?" she asked Phillips.
"On the bike trail in the park on south Key Biscayne. I couldn't tell how long he had been there. The ground around him was dry, so that probably helped."
"I don't feel or see any bumps, and no ticks; externally, he seems fine. We have an open bed, so we'll take him back. The doctor will want a blood sample."
Phillips followed the man on the gurney from triage into an examination room with a bed that could weigh the patient. It read 193 pounds. "I guesstimated pretty well," he said to himself. Once alone with him, he hovered over his face and gazed upon him in the stark fluorescent lighting. "Can you hear me?" he said to the guy. "You know, some guys get their surnames across their back like that. They usually have many other tattoos though. You look too clean-cut for that. So, are you Mr. Stallion or just known as a stallion? Hmm? I wish you would wake up. I have questions. Has someone assaulted you? Has someone injected you or something? What happened to you?"
After a few minutes, Dr. Cohen entered the room.
"Hello, officer, I heard you brought someone in. Let's see what we have here." He checked his pulse, pupils, mouth, nose, ears, rechecked his scalp, and gave his body a visual examination. "He certainly is healthy-looking for someone so unconscious," said the doctor. "I have ordered some blood work, and we'll see what information that gets us. May I ask your interest in this man?"
"I want to know if he's been assaulted. If he suddenly wakes up, it would be nice to get a statement if that's possible. So, I guess you could say that my interest is a professional one, and I'm the one who brought him here."
"If he should wake up, there's no guarantee he'll be in a position to answer any questions, but out of professional courtesy, I will agree for you to stay, so long as you don't get in the way."
"I appreciate that, thank you."
The phlebotomist entered when the doctor left.
"Hey, I'm here to draw blood," she said in obviousness.
Phillips watched closely as she laid her instruments on the metal tray table, including six vacuum tubes. She seated herself upon the stool and found his arm beneath the blanket, studied his veins for a moment, and proceeded to prepare for the draw. She gloved up and installed a needle on the vacutainer tube holder with practiced ease. She tied the rubber tourniquet around his upper arm and swabbed the area with alcohol. She held the needle for insertion and pushed. Nothing happened. She repositioned the needle and pushed. The needle wouldn't pierce his skin. Phillips got closer and watched her try it again. It just wouldn't go in. The phlebotomist was getting frustrated. She closed off the needle, set it aside, and prepared another from her pocket. She tried it again, but it wouldn't go in. Turning a tad pale, she set everything down, said, "Excuse me," and left the room.
Phillips immediately called Sergeant Watkins and not once could he take his eyes off the arm of the man on the hospital bed. "Hey, you were right all along," he said in distraction. "I should take that personal day." The sergeant said he would put it in the books and told him to enjoy his vacation.
Phillips found the man intriguing. Before him lay a handsome mystery, and he had no intention of leaving.
A few minutes later, Dr. Cohen entered, a little perturbed with the phlebotomist. Apparently, if you wanted something done right, you must do it yourself, but the instant he tried to push the needle into the man's arm, it wouldn't go in for him either, not even a little. He laid the vacutainer holder onto the metal tray and stepped back a little. He turned to the phlebotomist. "Could you leave the room, please?" Once she had, he spoke to the officer. "Where did you find this man?"
"A jogger found him naked and unconscious at the southern tip of Key Biscayne, I checked him over, he is now as he was then, and I brought him here."
The doctor uncovered the man, and they could see his fully nude body. He picked up the needle and an alcohol pad. He swabbed the man's right thigh and tried to push the needle into his leg. It wouldn't pierce the skin. He raised his hand and slammed the needle into the man's thigh. It didn't penetrate and left not even a scratch.
"That's...aah, that's not normal," said Phillips.
"No...it's not..." The doctor laid the instrument onto the table again and began to check the man's every nook and fold to find anything unusual. He recovered him with the blanket. He looked at the chart made by the staff when he arrived. "This says his weight is 193 pounds."
"Yeah, that's what it was when they brought him in, I saw it on the end of the bed when she wrote it down."
"Then either this bed is suddenly reading wrong, or this man has gained a pound and a half since he's been here."
His brows drew together. "What? That's impossible." He looked for himself and it read 194.5 pounds.
The doctor sat on the bed for a moment to change the weight. When he left the bed, it went back down but now it read 194.6 pounds. The doctor stood there thinking.
"So, what's wrong with him?" Phillips asked.
Dr. Cohen just stood there shaking his head. "I don't know what this is, but he's not human. He looks human, feels human, has a pulse like a human, breathes like a human, but no human has skin that a needle cannot penetrate and gains weight like this. They could revoke my license for making this suggestion, but I'm not certain he needs medical attention or anything else. It's like he's in a state of dormancy, and that would explain why he's unconscious. I would suggest that he could be a government experiment, but we don't have that sort of medical technology. He's gaining weight with no external input. That should be impossible."
"An alien/human hybrid of some kind," Phillips suggested.
The doctor shrugged. "Maybe. I just know there's nothing a hospital can do for him. We can give him an X-ray to see what that reveals, but if I'm right, it will only create more evidence, and I think that's a bad idea. What do you want to do with him?"
"Me?"
"You brought him here, so you've taken on a responsibility for him." Dr. Cohen glanced down at the scale readout. "He's gained another tenth of a pound. This, whatever this is, can't stay here."
"Oh, shit," said Phillips. "Maybe, we should call the government."
The doctor turned to him; his face scrunched into complete disbelief at the officer's naivety. "Have you not seen any films?" he asked. "When the government gets involved in situations like this, things go catastrophically bad. At the very least, they would take him away and no one would ever see him again, just for existing. And I'm Jewish, so trust me on this, it's not okay to take someone away for existing."
"What if he's dangerous?"
"You don't know that he is. You're a police officer. Human or not, what laws has he broken?"
"Indecent exposure at most, which may not have been of his own volition. And it looked like someone had dumped him in the park. What do you think I should do?"
"I think you should take him with you, protect him, and wait until he wakes up on his own. Once he does, find out who he is. He's a fascinating case; I would love to do it myself, but my wife hates it when I bring work home."
Phillips leaned close to the man's face. And stared at him for a moment. His hair, his brow, his nose, and the tiny up-curl of his mouth, spoke to him like it had the moment he saw him on the ground. The man carried a certain celestiality about him. "He looks like an angel to me," he said.
"At this point, I couldn't discount that idea either. Will you do it?"
Phillips's brows drew together and held his breath in a moment of decision. "Yeah."
"Do you know of the employee side-entrance to the emergency room?"
"I think so."
"Get your vehicle. I'll have him waiting there. Do it quickly."
It only took two seconds for Phillips to find himself leaving the room to get the Jeep. "The doctor is right," he thought to himself, "the guy hasn't done anything. There's no legal reason not to help him, and I have the time, so I'm choosing to do this."
Phillips had no idea how the doctor managed to get him out the door, but he waited for him when he pulled up, and the two men put him into the cargo space.
"I think you're doing the right thing," said Dr. Cohen.
"I hope so." Phillips got into the vehicle and buckled in. "Did you hear that, buddy? You're staying at Chez-Phillips for a while. I just hope you're not incubating an alien in your chest."
Particularly pleased with herself, Mrs. Novak who lives in apartment 3, an octogenarian with a gray beehive and the uncanny ability to detect from inside her apartment when someone drops a lit cigarette end near her door, had the opportunity that morning to report to the super a drip in her shower; she chastised a passing dog walker for allowing her canines to crap in the coreopsis, piss on the pentas, and dig into the dianthus; and she noted that Mr. Frankenbush from apartment 6 had once again stayed overnight with Ms. Gibson in apartment 2 next door. Little escaped the eagle eyes of Ms. Novak, a fact well known to Officer Phillips who, on more than one occasion, endured the precise details about minor infractions made by his own neighbors of laws that never existed.
The unusual early return of the officer from work, who backed into his parking space, caused her to meet him by his vehicle, and she barely allowed him to close his door.
"Hello, officer," she said in her Jersey accent, "I just wanted to tell you that Mrs. Hinklemeyer in apartment 10 has killed a cockroach in her kitchen, so they will be making an emergency spray of the apartments this afternoon."
He smiled. "Well...you have no idea how much I appreciate your letting me know that."
She glanced into the back of his vehicle. "You have a body back there!"
He laughed and put his finger to his lips and began whispering. "No, it's just a friend." He nodded his head. "A drunk friend. Aah, he needs drying out. I'm helping him."
"Oh! That's so kind of you, dear," she replied. "My first husband Mortie was just the same, it killed him in the end."
"I seem to recall you mentioning that once or twice. Well, thank you for letting me know about the bug man, but I need to get on with this, so I can get him upstairs. I don't want to embarrass him by drawing too much attention to him. I think that would be unhelpful. Don't you agree?"
"Oh, I quite agree," she whispered. "No sense in embarrassing anyone, after all, the inability to stay off the sauce is a disease, you know."
"I'm so pleased you understand, Mrs. Novak."
He locked the doors to the vehicle and sprinted up the staircase. In a first order of business, at the least, the guy needed a pair of shorts and a shirt. He dug through his chest of drawers, tossing aside the ones with too short an inseam. At the bottom, he found an extra-long pair of black and blue basketball shorts that he purchased at the end of that sad and oxymoronic "long shorts" era and found an orange, extra-large Miami Hurricanes t-shirt given to him during a particularly festive Dirty Santa one Christmas at the police station.
Having backed into his spot meant no one could see into the cargo area of the vehicle unless they descended the stairs, and that gave him time. He slipped the shorts over the man's feet with no problem, but the farther up the leg they went the more he struggled.
"You're not gonna help me at all, are you, buddy? You know, I suddenly have a newfound respect for people who dress the dead in mortuaries. I had no idea of the difficulty in dressing someone who doesn't help you. The problem is, you have a major bootie, and I can't simultaneously pick you up and push." He moved to the doorway on the side of the vehicle, reached in, grabbed the waistband, and with a great heaving pull, he got them over the hurdle. However, his uncut flaccid penis stubbornly refused to go into the shorts without assistance. "My apologies for this." He picked up the waistband with one hand, the end of his penis with the other, and tossed it into the shorts. "There. Now, you're presentable and street legal. After the shorts, though, I'm not even going to attempt this shirt." He tossed it aside. "Now, it's just a matter of carrying you upstairs, and you'll be safe. At the rate you're gaining weight, you're probably four pounds more than in the park, but don't worry, I've got you."
He pulled him from the vehicle and stood him up behind it by locking his knees. "Wow, so this is you standing. I'm six feet, so you must be a couple of inches taller than that. Okay, here we go." Phillips bent down a bit and allowed the man to drape over his shoulders with this right shoulder in the man's groin area. "I hope that I'm not busting your balls." He stood and could carry him well, but he needed to climb the stairs immediately. One foot in front of the other, he took each step carefully to maintain his balance. Navigating a flight of stairs with an unconscious body wasn't something he wanted to try again.
Once he arrived at his door, he paused a moment, breathing like he had run a mile. He turned the knob, carried him into the living room, and lowered him into a low-backed slipcovered chair with less grace than he intended. "Sorry, if that was too hard, buddy. I'll be right back." He ran from the room and down the staircase. He shut the doors of his vehicle and locked it. Taking two steps at a time, he returned to his guest.
He closed the door behind him and locked it. "Ugh! Tired now. You would make an incredible piece of gym equipment, you know that?" The swiveling chair in which he sat faced away from the door, and Phillips noticed the tattoo across the man's back. "Hey! Your tattoo has filled in more." He smiled and laughed a little. "Oh wow, that's so great! I'm actually encouraged by that." He squatted in front of him. "This tells me that the doctor was probably right. You're in some kind of dormancy, aren't you? And you'll most likely wake up when you're finished becoming whoever you are. Perhaps, I should start calling you Stallion. Would you like that? With the tattoo and all, I must assume you would. Well, Stallion, this is it," he said turning the chair and looking around the living, dining, and kitchen combo. "Apartment Sweet Apartment."
The guy said nothing.
Phillips sighed. "Yeah, it's pretty underwhelming to me too. Let me get out of this while I figure out what to do with you."
First thing, he tapped the code into his gun safe at the top of his closet and locked away his weapon. He began changing clothes and spoke to him all the while.
"I know it sounds crazy for me to talk to you, but I've heard that some coma patients can hear everything going on around them. I don't see why that might not apply to you, so I'm going with the assumption that you can hear me, even if you can't respond right now. It only seems polite; I mean, I wouldn't want to make the mistake of assuming you couldn't and then give you the silent treatment. How rude would that be?"
He picked up a couple of washcloths and seven towels from the linen closet, along with mild soap from the bathroom, and returned to the living room.
"The bug man will be here this afternoon, so I should have at least an hour for this. You'll have to take my word for it, but the overnight incident in the park has left you filthy, and unfortunately, my dragging you on the ground to get you into the Jeep didn't help. I don't know how you might feel about this, but you need a bath, and since getting you into the tub by myself is just asking for trouble, I will lay towels on the floor, I will place you on them, and then I will clean you up. I am viewing this as a clinical necessity, so I will wear gloves and act professionally. I am a policeman, after all, and I have too much integrity to take advantage of your incapacitation."
He spread three towels onto the floor. Picking him up from the front wasn't too complicated since he could lock Stallion's knees. He pulled down his shorts until they lay at his feet. He moved him forward and laid him face down on the towels then removed the shorts altogether. In the kitchen, he pulled a bucket from the laundry room and cleaned it out. He then filled it with very warm water. He carried it into the living room and sat next to him. He donned the gloves he said he would wear and began to clean him up.
"I wouldn't want to use too much soap. It would take forever to rinse you off.
"You know, Stallion," he said as he continued, "I'm fascinated by this process you're going through. I hope you're willing to tell me all about it when you wake up, but...I get the feeling that you're someone important, and maybe you can't take the time to talk to some cop from Key Biscayne. It's not like you asked for my help, and perhaps you never needed any. If a needle can't injure you, maybe you're impervious to far more and weren't in any danger no matter what anyone did. I don't know, but you may have more important things to take care of when you wake up. I just want you to know, that's okay, I will understand. However, in the absence of any evidence that that's true, I will assume you need my help, and I'm going to give it to you."
He shook his head and laughed. "You wanna hear something funny? I wasn't sure about doing all this, but once I started and gained momentum, I now feel like I have an investment in seeing it through." He squeezed the cloth into the bucket, rewet it, and continued.
"I will be honest with you, though. If someone at the hospital says something to the right person, and I get a visit over your disappearance there, I'm not sure what I could do if they discover you're here and wanted to take you. I can only hope you're awake by then if it ever comes to that.
"Well, that's your back half done. I wish I could wash your hair; it's full of sand and dirt. Let me think about how we might do that. Whatever we do, we need to take care of it before you become too heavy for me to maneuver. Providing, you ever get that far, of course."
He laid three towels down beside him and rolled him onto them.
"I can tell, you're definitely getting bigger, and probably taller too, but it seems unlikely to me though that you'll get extremely large. Your rate of growth would mean you would have to remain dormant for an unreasonable amount of time, and I suspect, that wouldn't necessarily be to your advantage. This water is too cold and dirty; let me refill it with fresh.
On the way to the sink, a knock came upon the door.
"Shit!" he said to himself. "One moment!" he yelled to the door. He ran into the living room, turned Stallion face down onto the carpet, and tossed the towels out of view. He covered Stallion's lower half with a throw from the couch, placed his arms in a relaxed pose at his sides, and turned his head to the left before answering the door.
"Just pest control to spray your apartment," said the man holding the tools of his trade.
"Yeah, come on in. I've been expecting you." He returned to Stallion's side and pretended to dig an elbow into Stallion's back as though he were giving a massage. "I heard that Mrs. Hinklemeyer in apartment 10 found a roach in her kitchen. I appreciate you staying on top of the problem."
"Well," said the man spraying the baseboards, "where there's one, there's more, and our company makes guarantees, so here I am."
"True, very true." He began massaging Stallion's shoulders.
Once the man completed spraying, he said, "I think that's got you covered."
"Thank you for that. If you would, please, just shut the door on your way out."
"No problem. Have a good day." And he left.
Phillips sighed. "I might have known if I counted on him not showing up, he would. Sorry about that."
He locked the front door, returned Stallion to his original position, and used the bathtub to get the water, so he could avoid the wet spray in the kitchen.
Using a fresh washcloth, he cleaned Stallion's face.
"I hope you don't mind my saying so, but you are one handsome man; you know that? Although, I think you would look even better with a beard. And speaking of beards, that reminds me. I'm going to grow mine out a bit. You may not realize this, but I'm on leave from work for the next 6 weeks. So, you have impeccable timing, or perhaps it's fate or something. You need help, and I just happen to have the time and willingness to help you. But don't think you're taking up my vacation. It would have been nice to go somewhere. I even have my passport and everything, but I had made no plans; I don't like traveling by myself."
Once he had reached the point of his lower abdominals, he discovered something. "I thought this was just dirt, but you're developing another tattoo. This one is on your left external oblique. It's too unfinished to say what it is, but I suppose that would mean you'll be like this a while longer, wouldn't it? I'm sure all this change was pre-planned in advance, but I don't understand why someone left you on your own though, and in that odd position. Was that planned too? Things could have gone very badly, you know. Unless...was I supposed to find you? I'm probably on some celestial Candid Camera or something. I did say you looked like an angel, and on that opinion, I have not changed my mind.
"I have one part of you left to wash, and I have to admit, having reached your dangly bits, if you are an angel, I had no idea you would be so well endowed." He began washing his penis and spoke to him at the same speed he washed him to hurry it along. "You're bigger now than this morning, and at this point, it wouldn't matter what brand of toilet you sit on, you're in the water; I hope you realize that. Of course, that assumes you need to eat and that sphincter in the back isn't just there for fun. Hey, no judgment from you. I already feel uncomfortable just washing you, and I want it on official record with you, God, Santa Claus, or whoever else that may be watching, that I'm on my best behavior. I'm just making light of this because it's so awkward. Okay, there; I'm done!"
He picked up the towel and dried him off.
"I don't want to leave your hair unwashed, and I think I may have an idea."
He folded a towel that he used and taped it to the edge of the counter along the front of the sink for padding. He put a clean pair of shorts on Stallion along with his rubber-soled house shoes for traction and wore his second pair. He gathered the shampoo, another towel, and readied everything he needed. He stood Stallion up, brought him into the kitchen, and leaned him over the edge into the sink. He held him balanced there with his hand gripping the waistband of the shorts in the back. He only had one hand available to do the washing, but it worked.
When he finished, he began removing Stallion's shorts. "Sorry, pal, if you outgrow these, I'll have to cut them off you, and you're hanging out of them anyway.
"I just got this shampoo, so I will leave your hair a little damp to evaluate the manufacturer's wash and go claims. I hope you don't mind being my test subject."
He struggled to get Stallion into the bedroom. "I'm going to put you to bed, so you'll be comfortable." Phillips's strength was flagging, and Stallion started listing to the right when he entered the bedroom. "Woah...no no, buddy, you can't have that side of the bed. That's my side, and yes, I'm sleeping in the same bed with you. There's an entire king-size bed in here, and my couch isn't fit to sleep on." He dropped him onto the bed, and he began straightening him up. "Besides, if you should awaken in the middle of the night, I want to know it. And yes, I know that I don't know you, so why would I trust you, right?" He hovered over Stallion's face. "I've given that some thought. Just because your skin has an apparent imperviousness that wouldn't mean you have no other vulnerabilities. I can't tell who, but someone has left you to the mercy of humanity and the kindness of strangers. But no matter the cause, there was an intention for someone to find you. If that weren't the case, they could have picked many other places on this planet, so why there? I seriously doubt any randomness caused you to end up at the southern tip of Key Biscayne, of all places. I know that coincidences happen, but my situation fits with yours entirely too hand-in-glove to be a coincidence.
"Before I leave to clean up the mess I made and get something to eat, I thought I would give you something to think about while I give your ears a rest. My last name is Phillips...that's from the Greek word Philippos. It means `Lover of horses'...and I'll tell ya...I've never met a horse I didn't like." He tucked Stallion's feet under the covers and pulled them over him.
The businessman lived alone in a house that could hold three full families with little difficulty. He had dined with royalty and presidents and influenced the world around him for many years. But despite all this, he was secretly a miserable man. Having seen enough of it, the world bored him. He had no life within him, and the mental vitality he once felt had withered with time, which would have surprised anyone who knew him as he only appeared to be in his late twenties.
While seldom found in his Manhattan office, at four o'clock the afternoon of June 21st, he had taken a jaunt there to catch up on financial matters. Wearing a coal-colored suit made of the finest fabrics that both his gotten and ill-gotten gains could afford, the man with reddish hair and a dour expression, stalked into the room like he owned the entire high-rise building, and he did. On arrival, he noted a dark-haired, curvy woman wearing a white skirt and low-cut blouse holding a tablet. She waited for him from the Corinthian-leather couch that dominated the outer office. The man never stopped and Carl, his administrative assistant, followed him to the antique mahogany desk that once belong to a former CEO of a major New York bank.
"You have an array of messages, sir. In order of those most imperative, the President wants to have another round of golf at Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard to have another important chat. The Patterson Brothers are advising you to dump your stock on Friday for the companies they list here. I'm unsure which they are, but said you would know, and there are several other messages of lesser urgency."
"Who is the woman in the outer office?"
He cleared his throat. "She said her friends call her Happiness, sir. She claims to have information you will want concerning the year 1046."
The moment he heard the mention of the year, he had his complete attention. "How long has she been there?"
"About 15 minutes, sir."
"Send her in and close the door on the way out."
When Carl turned to go, they both could see the woman had already let herself in and waited halfway to the desk from the office entrance.
Once Carl closed the door, the woman began.
She tipped her head a little, and her blood-red lips always spoke with a slow, smooth, and slightly breathy quality. "Hello, Aquila."
Aquila, a man known in 2016 as Elias Adrianus had amassed an incredible amount of hidden wealth in the form of precious metals, and visible wealth from his investments. It calculated to many lifetimes' worth of riches, and he considered all of it, to the last penny, his compensation (a pittance in his eyes) for the many years he spent living in misery. He often compared his life to standing in the center of a clock face with the advancement of the ages passing around him, while he alone remained untouched by the hands of time.
Over the years, Father Time had taken from him every friend, every lover, every wife, and everyone he had ever cared about. In the past, whenever it happened, he tried to get on with his life---as one does at such losses. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and kept going, but with every loss, part of him died, until all he had left was a growing contempt for the world and everyone in it.
It had been hundreds of years since anyone called him Aquila.
"Who are you?"
"As I have said, I am Happiness, and I am here to help you."
"Help me, how?"
"Your desire is known to me and can be achieved." She eased behind the man, and she laid the tablet before him. The image depicted two men sitting on a sea wall, and as the video played, one mentioned the year 1046. Her voice was like honey, and she smelled of jasmine. "The man to the left is Henri Estalon. He was your father. He is now dead. The man to the right is Ronan Stallion, the man he chose as his replacement." She slowly forwarded the video and paused it the moment the transfer occurred with a brilliant white light spilling from between the two men. "You are the son of a man bound to an eternal flame, and you are its product. So long as that flame burns, you cannot die."
He couldn't stop staring at the image before him. "How can I extinguish the flame?"
She leaned into his left ear and whispered to him. "The flame and the stallion are connected. To kill the flame, you must kill the stallion...with this." Standing behind him she reached out and placed onto the desk a dagger made of an unusual metal that Adrianus had never seen. She moved to his other ear and spoke as if whispering sweet nothings in a slow sensuous purr. "He is vulnerable, but you must find out how."
"And then I'll die."
"When the stallion dies, you die."
"But to kill someone..."
She whispered seductively into his ear. "You have already killed many times," she said planting the seeds of her temptation. "You played both sides of wars throughout the last two centuries, and your lobbying kept people from the medicine and care they needed to survive. You have killed many, but you did so from a distance where the deaths were out of sight and out of mind. What would you find easier, continuing to do that for all eternity,"---she moved to his other ear---"or to kill this one man directly, thereby ending your own misery?"
Unable to find a flaw in her argument, he asked her, "Where will I find this Ronan Stallion?"
"He is in Miami. I cannot guarantee he will remain there. He is... protected. You must catch him when and where he is vulnerable." She drew back from him and left his peripheral vision. "How can I find him?" He turned his chair to see her, but she had vanished, leaving him armed with only the dagger and the information on the tablet.
He used the intercom. "Carl, have them prepare the jet. I'm leaving for Miami."