Centaurian

Centaurian - Chapter 3

I wrote this story for Nifty, a nifty site if there ever was one. Nifty needs your donations to host this work, and some works, no doubt, that are far better. If you enjoy Nifty, please, consider donating at donate.nifty.org/donate.html

This work is the sole property of the author and may not be reprinted or reused without his written permission.

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.

Thank you for delving into this work; I hope you enjoy it.

Please send questions, comments, or complaints to Rick.Heathen@gmail.com. I would enjoy reading what you have to say.

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 3

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.

On the morning of June 22nd, as always, Trace arose to breakfast with his beautiful wife and 2.3 children in their house tucked away among thousands of other misfortunates who called Miami's suburban sprawl their home. Due to his circumstance, he experienced the reverse of a common expectation; work became his haven from the daily grind of maintaining some semblance of marital bliss and the responsibilities of fatherhood, both of which he fell into by the social conditioning of his upbringing. So, five days of every week, when the time arrived for his morning commute to work, he couldn't flee from his life there fast enough. He struggled with the need to tell his wife everything, but he lacked the courage.

By 10:45 that morning, Trace and two relief lifeguards, Benny and Alice, stood in the lobby watching the report on a local television channel about an explosion that occurred at 9:28 AM at a hotel to the south. Since the vanishing point on the horizon is no more than 2.9 miles away, and the hotel lay at a location three times that distance, they knew nothing of it.

Reporters at the scene spoke of an amazing man, known only as "Stallion", who had taken over the rescue operation due to his ability to find and reach many people trapped in pockets of the building that professional rescue workers would likely have missed, or the victim would have died before they could cut through the fallen parts of the building to reach them. One fireman emerging from the hotel with an empty tank on his self-contained breathing apparatus, when asked about Stallion, stated, "I've never seen anyone like him. He needs no mask or fire protection. He walked through fire to rescue someone in a burning room like it was nothing, and when his shirt caught alight, he just tore it off and kept going. He's lifting things by himself that should be impossible, and he's done all this without breaking a sweat." Liam entered the lobby of the rescue station. Two men and a woman in rescue uniforms faced the wall monitor viewing the same channel he had on his phone.

"I see that you're watching it too," he said.

"May I help you?" asked the handsome blond man.

"I hope you will. I'm currently off duty, but I'm Officer Liam Philips of the Key Biscayne police department." He showed them his identification and pointed to the television screen. "Stallion is a friend of mine. He will meet me out front when the rescue operation at the hotel has ceased, and he will need to clean up. May he use your facility? We would really appreciate it."

The blond man said, "I'm Trace Hawkins, chief of operations. If it's for someone who rescues people, absolutely."

"Is what they're saying about him true?" asked the man whose name badge read Benny.

"Yes," he said, knowing fully well, how unlikely that sounded.

"How is that possible?" asked the woman named Alice.

"Stallion is unique." Liam pulled the chunk of bent metal from his pocket and held it up. "This morning, before Stallion got ahold of it, this was a case knife from my kitchen. I'm thinking of making a keychain from it."

"Holy shit," said Benny.

Trace examined it. "What did he use to do this?"

"Just his fingers."

"No way...," said Alice.

"I couldn't believe it either," said Liam, "but there it is." Trace returned it to him.

They heard the fire chief at the scene tell the reporter that the firefighters had extinguished the fire and were bringing out the last of the survivors, all of whom Ronan found quickly.

They watched closely as Ronan emerged from the building behind everyone else. The bits of soot covering his shirtless upper body only served to highlight his heroic appearance. Unable to get closer, the cameraman zoomed in. It marked the first time the world saw the 27-year-old man known as Stallion, and it wouldn't be the last.

The four of them stared at the screen. "Does he have a girlfriend?" Alice asked.

Not wanting to speak for Ronan, Liam said, "Not that I'm aware of."

After realizing that the professionals had everything well in hand, Ronan sped away from the scene faster than would seem possible to join Liam at Haulover.

"Just give him a few minutes," said Liam. "I'll meet him out front."

Trace took note of the time and told his coworkers they needed to make a sweep of the park, so they left.

When Liam left the building, Trace joined him.

Ronan arrived wearing singed pants, scorched shoes with disintegrating soles, and a friendly smile. Liam introduced Trace to Stallion.

"Anyone who helps others is a friend of mine," said Ronan.

Shaking his hand, Trace said, "It took 6 minutes for you to run roughly ten miles. That's about a hundred miles an hour."

"Yeah, I had to slow down because of the traffic and other obstacles."

"Right...," said Trace, uncertain what to think, considering the unbelievability of it all.

Noting his absence of a shirt, Liam said, "We heard your shirt caught fire." Ronan nodded. "And the rest of this is ruined; I don't know what to do about flammable clothing. Going shirtless into a fire isn't a problem, but at the very least, I need pants that don't burn. I wouldn't want to expose myself." Ronan noticed Trace's astonished expression. "Are you okay?"

"For the first time in my life," said Trace, "the sentence, `you beat all I've ever seen,' seems fitting. Are you even human?"

"My speed, strength, and that I don't burn will become well known. So, for the sake of honesty, I must admit that I am more than human."

"You look like a superhero. Is that what you are?"

"That's for others to decide. I can only be who I am."

"You're a hero to me," said Liam, "and I think you're pretty super."

Ronan laughed. "Did you get something to eat?"

Liam nodded. "Yeah. I'm good."

"Well, come inside and clean up," said Trace. "We have a locker room you can use." They followed Trace into the building.

The locker room had all the necessary amenities, sinks, toilets, lockers, a couple of long benches, and a double shower at the end of the room. I handed Ronan his bag, as Trace casually took a bench across from him. He paid no attention to Ronan zipping and unzipping or turning the bag around to pull all manner of things from it. He simply stared and asked questions. Ronan was more than willing to let him ask anything he liked. He saw it as good practice for the inevitable questions that the public at large would one day ask.

"So, where are you from?" asked Trace.

"I'm from here...and Greece." He sat on the bench and removed the remnants of his shoes and socks.

Seeing Ronan's ruined shoes, he asked, "How can you do those incredible things?"

"It's all in who I am."

"And just who are you?"

"It even sounds strange for me to say it, but I am the Centaurian."

"The Centaurian...," said Trace.

Ronan stood, unbuckled, unbuttoned, and unzipped his pants. "I'm part centaur." He pushed down his pants and underwear. He had on full display the Centaurian appendage along with the unusual body hair.

Wide-eyed and unblinking, Trace sat in dead silence for a moment. Ronan stripped down, then took the soap, shampoo, and cloth to the shower to wash. Trace said nothing and just stared as he scrubbed the soot from his skin.

Liam watched Trace. "He's unimaginably beautiful, isn't he?"

Mesmerized and unable to look away, Trace nodded. "There's no way that I'm not gay."

Liam laughed a little and turned toward Ronan in the shower. "Yeah, it's pretty affirming, isn't it?"

"I really need to tell my wife," Trace said.

"Yikes. I hate to hear that still happens."

"It does. Stallion wouldn't happen to be gay, would he? That's probably too much to hope for."

"We've not discussed it directly, so I'm not sure."

When Ronan finished, Trace watched his every movement as he picked up the towel by his bag.

"Aren't centaurs just a myth?" asked Trace.

Ronan stepped right in front of him, his body dripping wet, with the towel over his head, patting his hair dry. "Do I not look part equine to you?"

Trace sighed. "Sure, but you have no hooves."

Ronan stepped back and dried off. "I'm half centaur, and therefore, one-quarter Centaurian equine, but most of what makes me what I am is on the inside. My speed, strength, overall physical size, and the configuration of my body hair are external manifestations of my Centaurian nature. I have a question for you. Besides Liam, you are the first to know this much about me. Does any of it sound frightening?"

"You're not as much frightening, as you are unbelievable."

Ronan nodded. "I can understand that. Do you have a quarter you can spare?" Ronan wrapped himself in the towel.

Trace took one from his pocket and dropped it into Ronan's hand, and he held it up.

"Do you know what I can do with this?"---Trace shook his head---"Well, not a lot, a quarter won't buy much anymore."

Trace laughed.

"However," Ronan stepped in front of him and began to re-form the quarter into a thin square sheet of metal. He then began to fold it as though it were paper. He folded it this way and that way, and in the end, he opened what he had made. He blew on it a little, cooling it down, and placed a tiny nickel and copper origami boat---slightly larger than a Monopoly piece---into Trace's hand. He removed the towel and finished drying himself.

"If I hadn't watched you do that with my own eyes," said Trace, "I wouldn't have believed it. Have you any idea the amount of force it takes to manipulate metal like that?"---Trace stared at the tiny boat---"Apart from seeing you naked, Stallion, this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen."

"Trace is curious to know if you're gay," said Liam. "Since we haven't had that conversation, I couldn't say."

"I'm proud to say that I am gay," he said.

"Really?" asked Trace sounding surprised.

"Yes, but I don't consider myself available,"---he made a rapid glance at Liam---"at least, I hope I'm not."

"That remains undetermined," said Liam.

"And understandably so," remarked Ronan in a quiet voice. He donned a similar set of clothing to the one he had ruined. "Well, thank you, Trace, for allowing me to clean up. Apparently, rescuing people can be a messy business."

Liam grew curious and asked. "How many people did you find?"

"About three dozen altogether, most of them injured, some just trapped, but a third of them had died in the explosion. There were more that hadn't survived, but I couldn't reach them without putting the rescue workers at risk, and I wouldn't do that."

Trace nodded. "You did a good thing today."

"Well...I have made doing good things my mission in life."

Once Ronan finished dressing, the three of them meandered through the corridor to the lobby, and out to the front of the building. "You are welcome here anytime, Stallion," said Trace. "I don't care what you are." He held his hand out, and Ronan shook it. "I hope I get to hear more about the good you do. You're a fascinating and unbelievably handsome man, and I'm glad you showed up in my life. It's solidified my need to get my personal life in order." He shook Liam's hand. "I wish you both the best of luck."

When Trace re-entered the building, Liam asked, "Had you seen any sign of Aquila at the hotel?"

"No, but I can still feel his presence out there somewhere. Shall we go to the airport?"

"Aah...hold on." Liam pulled out his smartphone to begin a search. "On the way here, I heard the words nine-eleven bandied about on the radio. I'm sure other people had the same thought. So, let me check the airport status. And... Yep. Just as I thought. They've closed the airport as a just-in-case measure. It says that it may reopen tomorrow. If you want to leave today, we could drive somewhere."

"This is Miami," said Ronan staring out at the sea, a ship on the horizon. "We could hop a cargo ship. They often take on passengers. That would be unexpected. It would give me time to think, and for us to get to know one another."

"That sounds like an amazing idea, but would that be safe?"

"I would make it safe. And it's not like the captain would insist we `heave to' or anything. We wouldn't join the crew, just be there.

"Heave to?" Liam laughed. "That's a sailing term. Look, I can take care of myself with the crew; I meant safe because of your distant relations, namely Poseidon. The ocean is his domain, after all. Should we consult you-know-who?"

"Probably, although I dislike interrupting the enjoyment of his Cuban. Dolos..."

Dolos stepped out from behind Ronan, and his face carried a sullen expression.

"Hello, Dolos," said Ronan sounding concerned. "Have we taken you away from your Cuban?"

"No. Things are not good right now. I have a profound sadness, and Zeus is furious."

"At me?"

"No, at Aquila. Kakia discovered what had happened with the bellhop named Felix, and she destroyed that beautiful young man with the Chronosian blade, and that upsets me. I feel that I'm at fault because I instigated their liaison last night. Felix was an amazing lover, specially blessed by Eros who truly outdid himself, and I'm heartbroken over it. Anyway, Aquila rightly took his anger out on Kakia and stabbed her with the blade."

"So, that caused the explosion?"

Dolos nodded. "Prometheus and I are upset about the deaths of those innocent people too, but unlike Felix, at least they're in the underworld now, experiencing whatever they expected when they died."

"So, where is Felix?" asked Liam.

"He no longer exists. I would love to ask Prometheus to bring him back, but there's nothing left of him. The blade destroyed him utterly, just as it did with Kakia, but unlike Felix, she deserved it. I always despised her for her callousness."

"What specifically angered Zeus?" asked Ronan.

"The Chronosian blade was Zeus's idea---made by Chronos himself; one had never before existed. That it destroyed a goddess has embarrassed Zeus, and when events deviate from the plan, he gets angry."

"Where's the blade now?" asked Ronan. "Does Aquila still have it, or should I go search the rubble for it?"

Dolos shook his head. "As Sir Isaac Newton realized in his third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You can't just destroy a goddess without a reaction, so it destroyed the blade at the same time, and at the point where the blade and Kakia intersected there came a hotel-destroying BOOM!

"It threw Aquila so far from the building, he landed in the water. He feels terrible about the whole situation; he was crying on the beach after a jogger pulled him to shore. We can hardly blame him for it though; he couldn't know that would happen."

"So, does Aquila still want to die?" asked Ronan. "Without the blade, he has no means to try and kill me."

"I can't tell. I heard him whisper to himself that he needed to find you. I have no idea what his intentions are for when he does. Like with you, he's immortal, so his thoughts are opaque."

"The airport is closed due to the explosion," said Liam. "Ronan has suggested that we take a cargo ship to somewhere."

"At this point, with Zeus having a conniption fit, the sea is safer than the air."

"What about Poseidon?"

"He refuses to mind Zeus's business for him; he won't bother you."

Liam turned to Ronan. "Okay, let's try a cargo ship."

"I can help you with that," said Dolos. "There are a lot of ships here. What destination had you in mind?"

"I want to go home for a while," said Ronan.

Taken aback, Dolos raised a brow. "Really... It's about time one of you Stallions decided to go home. I will get you as close as possible. Let me speak to Prometheus, and I'll have something by the time you get back to your vehicle."

William Grosz, a German man with ash-brown hair, a square face, and a gym-honed body, worked as a purser for a container ship called the CS Fritz Himmel for the Reliance Shipping Company out of Hamburg. A purser dealt with all the logistical, financial, legal, and administrative matters for the ship that concerned the crew, the cargo, supplies, and the authorities at their ports of call. And if the ship had any passengers---a rare event for the Fritz Himmel---it would be the task of the steward and the purser to ensure they had everything they needed. So, while William could be a busy man, the bulk of his duties occurred while at port, and he had streamlined his tasks to a level of efficiency that, during the transatlantic crossing, it left little for him to do.

By noon of that day, he had completed his in-port tasks, and the ship had scheduled its departure at 5:00 PM. After lunch, he left the superstructure and took a stroll around the main deck and paused by the aluminum gangway (the staircase used to reach the dock from the main deck of the ship), and below sat an olive-colored Jeep with a woman leaning against the side. When she saw him, she gestured for him to come down, which he did.

He found a voluptuous woman with straight blonde hair in a ponytail had awaited him. Her pale blue, painted-on jeans showing her slender, curvy figure and the white blouse she wore displayed just enough skin to see its porcelain-like smoothness, but her sensuous lips that held a pleasant smile spoke with the most incredible voice he had ever heard. By her accent, he could tell she was Swedish, and he had never seen anyone who had fit his description of the most beautiful woman he could ever hope to meet than the one who stood before him then.

"Oh," she said, gazing upon him in interest. "Hello, my name is Emma Nordstrom, and I was wondering if by chance you were heading back to Europe when you leave Miami. My two friends and I need a ride, and I hear that a voyage aboard a cargo vessel can be a pleasant, leisurely journey. If you have two cabins available, one for me---as I'm alone---and the other for my friends, I would be grateful. We can pay you whatever you ask; money isn't a problem."

He stood there looking at her dreamily. "I would love to have you...aboard, I mean. I would love to have you aboard. And yes, our next stop is Genoa, Italy. Let me speak to the ship's first mate, and I will be right back. Don't go anywhere!" He hurried up the staircase.

Prometheus discovered the Fritz Himmel rarely took on passengers, and they never advertised their four available cabins, so they usually remained unoccupied. In his prescience, he saw William's stroll as a means to get aboard and conveyed the information to Dolos.

The purser found the first mate, Paul Hurst, on the bridge in conversation with Captain Stettler about ship matters and took him aside at an opportune moment.

"A woman on the dock has made a request for two rooms and passage to our next port of call for herself and her two friends," said William.

"Who is it?"

"Someone you will want to see before making a decision."

Descending the aluminum staircase, Paul then understood what William meant. The woman was beautiful, although he never really found himself attracted to blondes. She stood on the dock by her two male companions, one of whom had considerable height, a lot of muscle, and a familiar face.

"This is Emma Nordstrom," said William, "and I've yet to meet her friends."

"This is Liam Phillips," said Emma, "and Ronan Stallion."

"Stallion..." said Paul. "I thought you looked familiar. I saw you on the internet news. You were at that hotel this morning. We heard the explosion and saw the smoke from here. You saved a lot of lives today. Have you a reason you wish to leave Miami with us? Our journey to Genoa is slow, taking nine days. And as for you Ms. Nordström, we have an amazing chef, but our accommodations aren't exactly the Ritz Carlton."

"I expected that," said Emma, "and I'm tougher than I might seem." She glanced at William, and he took notice.

"We are in no hurry to get to Europe," said Liam, "but we do need to go there. May we ride with you? We can pay you whatever you ask."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have three rooms?" asked Paul. "Ours only have double beds."

Ronan asked Liam, "Would you rather have a room to yourself?"

"If it's no problem," Liam said to Paul, "Ronan and I will stay together in one room."

Paul laughed a little. "We don't mind."

He gave them a quote, and they accepted the price of the trip, and the captain welcomed them aboard.

William had an instant crush on Emma, and Dolos---disguised as Emma---thought William Grosz was dreamy, too dreamy just to walk away from, so Emma accompanied Ronan and Liam to Genoa because why not? Apparently, William usually experienced a great deal of boredom for eight of the nine days across the Atlantic, and on this occasion, he hoped to spend a lot of that time with Emma, and she intended to keep him exceedingly busy.

The hull and the superstructure made up the two basic parts of most container ships. The hull housed the ballast, the tanks for usable freshwater, fuel, lubricant, various storage locations, the engine room, tool room, and other items of utility necessary for the ship. The deck is on the top of the hull and that's where the crew stacked and stored most of the cargo containers. The superstructure contained the bridge where navigation took place, the crew and guest quarters, the sickbay, the kitchen, the dining room, meeting rooms, a gym, a seawater pool, and as they stayed on a German ship, it also had a dry sauna.

From their single square porthole, Ronan and Liam could see that their cabin held a double bed. It had lots of storage, a small refrigerator, and a utilitarian bathroom with a sink, commode, and a shower that didn't require a curtain. They lay back on the bed, their feet still on the floor, and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

"Did you really mean what you said in the locker room earlier about not considering yourself available?" asked Liam.

"Yes," he said. "Humans can't know one another without experience because you can't see one another as you truly are. I heard everything you said to me yesterday, but today, I can see into your heart. You are beautiful, and I could be happy with you. But I know we have some drastic differences. You have a fear of me, but I can't tell what it's about. Will you tell me?"

"I have a few things. There's the whole `you could become a god' aspect of who you are. How will that affect you? And another, if I'm lucky enough to live that long, I will grow old, and one day, I will die. It seems strange that we can't grow old together, and I would not want to burden you. I guess my fear is that one day you wouldn't find me so beautiful anymore and you would leave."

"I understand," said Ronan.

"However, I know that, at the moment, neither of those things are a problem."

"Okay, good. I'm not prescient, so I don't know what the future holds, but neither do you. All we have is right now. Should we worry about things that haven't happened as if we could know? Will we deny ourselves some happiness today because of what might happen decades from now?"

Liam rolled over and brought his face to Ronan's. "May I kiss you?" he asked.

"Please do."

A first kiss is a special and magical thing, as thoughts and desires and hopes, all wrapped up and expressed in a passion that inflames the senses and disregards the fears. From the point of that kiss, Liam couldn't care what the future held, he wanted Ronan just as he was, however that was, then and in the future. And if Ronan wanted him, he was his, willingly ensnared and not looking back.