Carnival without Lights

Rupert was lying on his couch in his gym attire even though he hadn’t gone to workout in over two months. It was just more comfortable lying around in sweat pants, an unzipped sweater and a t-shirt than his suit and tie. He was staring at his fireplace which was smoldering and dark and tapped his finger lightly on the book that he had resting on his leg. The television above the mantle was dark and silent…neither visual stories nor print novels were entertaining now.

He pondered over what he could do since television and novels had lost their allure—work, go to sleep, go out to a nightclub somewhere and bring someone back home to entertain himself with…but nothing sounded attractive.

He glanced at his phone. He could call someone…but who would want to talk to him? He’d gone to one of his acquaintances’ parties the night before and put on a mask of happiness, but he felt no desire to go and converse with the guests…so he hadn’t. If they came to him, he spoke, but hardly anyone did.

Who cared about him? He was just a faggot whose lover had left him. Who wanted to get close to that? No one. Maybe if he’d simply been a man whose wife had left he would gain a sympathetic glance, but he had no wife, he had a boyfriend—no right for pity.

Rupert shifted his legs and let the book fall from his lap onto the floor and stared at it dismally. The plot had been amazing…there were people in love, a realistic sort of love where flaws were recognized, scolded and detested instead of idolized and loved…he’d loved the story so much before, but now he didn’t care to know the outcome. So they lived happily ever after? That was nice. Good for them. Their love comes to a tragic end? Too bad. They’ll move on. They don’t really exist—why should it matter if the succeed or fail?

Rupert was unhappy, and…

The doorbell had rung. Rupert could hardly believe it.

He passed a glance to the clock in the corner that broke the silence by ticking and stared at it in confusion. It was past midnight, but—there it was again, knocking now.

He grabbed his phone and kept it in his hand as he slithered from his sitting room and rounded the corner into the hallway that he followed into the entrance room. If it was a burglar, he could at least try to dial 911 before being knocked unconscious. If it was a murderer, oh well, he’d just be dead.

As he unlocked the front door, staring at the white, fogged glass and the grey silhouette, he tried to imagine who would be there if not a murderer or burglar. Someone with a flat tire? His deranged neighbor from up the street asking if he had seen their stupid, yappy dog? Rupert pulled the golden chain lock aside and flipped on the porch light before opening the door.

His heart lurched and then attempted to quit beating as his eyes frantically jolted from blood stream to cut to bruise on the down turned face of the man outside his door. Despite the bruises, despite the obscuring blood and gashes, he knew that form and he knew that face. His darting eyes began to blink rapidly as he attempted to hold back tears.

He’d /known/ that this was going to happen, that if Jesse ever came back he’d either be in a body bag or bloodied.

Rupert flung open the screen door and Jesse finally averted his gaze from the stone of the porch. When his equally blackened and reddened eyes met Rupert’s frantic ones, he began to smile despite himself. Jesse knew he was welcome here. Rupert wouldn’t turn him away. When he smiled, Rupert caught a glimpse of his chipped teeth and turned away, squeezing his eyes shut to banish the image. He shook for a moment and then reopened his eyes.

“You’re not wearing your jacket,” Jesse spoke. He cleared his throat and shivered involuntarily. “You look naked.” Rupert looked at him with misty eyes that didn’t even spark with humor. His lips didn’t twitch to offer a smile to lighten the mood.

“Inside,” Rupert choked out. His voice cracked, and the instant he spoke tears fell from his eyes making Jesse feel guilty. He didn’t make Rupert ask again and pushed past him into the too-large house.

Once there, once the fear of being grabbed by Daniel or Nathan as he rounded every corner or passed every tree was finally banished, the pain began to flare—Jesse began to recognize it.

Rupert closed the door and locked it against the night, but never turned away from it. Jesse stood behind him, afraid to speak and terrified to move. He rubbed his afflicted wrist gently and groaned involuntarily. Rupert turned then.

“Jesse,” he said softly, absurdly softly. Jesse felt comforted by the voice, but at the same time was wary of it. “What happened to you?” Something in the way he spoke the words made Jesse wonder if Rupert was asking about his bruises and blood or the way he’d just disappeared all of those months before.

“I made him mad,” Jesse mumbled, looking at the floor because he couldn’t bear to see the snowstorm in Rupert’s once welcoming eyes. “And he hit me.”

“Hit you,” Rupert echoed for a moment. “It looks more to me like he trounced you.” Jesse dared a glance at his face and felt his fears wane. Rupert didn’t look anywhere near as indifferent or agitated as his voice had sounded. He looked miserable and terribly confused.

“Yeah,” he replied with a rough voice. “He did that, too.” Rupert stepped away from the door and Jesse’s eyes immediately dropped back down to the polished floor.

“Do you feel like you need to go to the hospital?” Rupert asked, rubbing away the tears that had originally fallen onto his cheeks casually. They weren’t replaced with fresh ones.

“No,” Jesse answered. “I think I’ll be okay for now.”

“For now?” Rupert repeated. Before, Jesse would’ve been irritated by Rupert’s seemingly mindless repeating of each word he said. Now, however, Jesse welcomed it. He understood it. He understood everything so much better…now…

When it was probably already too late…

“Maybe in the morning, but, Rupert, please not now.” Rupert closed his eyes the instant his name was spoken. Jesse knew what he was feeling, or at least he hoped it was true. He was hoping that Rupert had been waiting /so long/ to hear his name spoken so softly by the man he cared about once again. Jesse remembered that the last time he’d spoken Rupert’s name, it had been spat at him…

The last time he’d spoken Rupert’s name was the time he got caught by Daniel on the phone…“He hurts you!” Rupert had snapped, it had sounded like he was pleading for Jesse to know that. And what had he been preparing to say before Daniel walked in the door? “Rupert, I deserve to be hurt by him.”

“Rupert,” Jesse merely whispered. Rupert finally reopened his eyes and looked at him. “Can I stay?” Nothing. Rupert said nothing. His eyes didn’t change, his face didn’t change. It was like he hadn’t heard or couldn’t comprehend it…or conceive of it. “Please. I have no where else to go!” Still, no reaction. Rupert’s eyes were staring into his, looking tired and void. Jesse felt his terrors creep back into his chest—a sharp pain like a piercing knife. A type of pain he’d become familiar with long ago, yet it still brought tears to his eyes. What had he done to him? Rupert was never quiet for so long. He always listened, he heard everything, picked up on /everything/. Now, he was just there, like a statue that sometimes moved, like a robot or a ghost. “You’re the only friend I have!” Jesse cried out, beginning to sob. “No one else gives a damn about me, please!”

At the sound of the first choked breath, Rupert reanimated himself and a glimmer of pain shot through his eyes.

“Stay?” He repeated, as if he hadn’t heard the rest. To Jesse, his tone said more. His tone said “/Now/ you want to stay?”

“Rupert, I’m sorry!” Jesse pleaded, tears falling heavily and mixing with the blood which was smudged across his face and clotted around his mouth. “I mean it, I really am! I know you don’t have any reason to believe me but, please—I’m sorry I hurt you! You did everything you were supposed to for me and I’m sorry I didn’t give the same back. I had no excuse to do that to you and I /hate/ myself for it!” Jesse pulled in a shaking breath and Rupert moved his mouth as if preparing to speak, yet no words came. “Ever since we first got together, I’ve been trying to figure what a guy like you was doing with a no-class dropout like me. I kept waiting for you to expose me as some sort of idiot to all your friends—someone naïve enough to believe that you actually cared—and when you didn’t I felt so repulsed to have thought it that I couldn’t stand to even look at myself. I felt so disgusted and I knew I didn’t deserve to be with you—I didn’t mean to hurt you like that, but I deserved to be with him!”

“Jesse,” Rupert spoke, taking a step closer.

“When you called Daniel’s house it killed me to hear you like that. You weren’t supposed to love me, Rupert, you were supposed to care!”

“You could have left then!” Rupert shouted, his hysteria almost matching Jesse’s since he’d returned from his frigid state. “I told you I still wanted you! I said I’d help you! How can you act like you didn’t think I cared?”

“I know you did,” Jesse sobbed. “But Daniel…I deserved to be with Daniel because he’s the only person I’m good enough for. There is nothing good in me, nothing! Why would you want to be with something like me?” Rupert just stared at him in silence for a moment, trying to make sense of the sobbed, shaky sentences that had been tossed into the air.

He knew that Jesse wasn’t confident about his social status at all of those parties they went to, and he’d almost felt the tension during their first few months together as if, as he had said, Jesse was expecting to be made a fool out of. But he’d thought that had passed.

Rupert knew what was happening. He was able to see things so clearly ever since he’d seen Jesse cowering behind Daniel as if /he/ were the threat. Jesse kept saying he “deserved” to be with Daniel—indirectly, he was saying he deserved to be hit, he deserved to be hurt, he deserved to be in the condition that he was now.

He felt this and believed this because Daniel had told him to. That was probably how Daniel was able to steal Jesse back, but saying something clever like “what’s so great about you? Why would a rich guy like him want some/thing/ like you?” Jesse’s mind was so easily corrupted. Saying something like that would leave him thinking about it forever…

And if that wasn’t true? If that wasn’t how Daniel had repossessed him like a car? What could he have done? He’d used sex, he got Jesse to cheat—that Rupert knew…but what else? What had they discussed? What had been said?

Rupert gave up. He would never know; it would never matter. What mattered was that Jesse was back—for however long—and he was hurt, and he was crying, and he truly was /sincerely/ sorry for the pain he’d caused, and he really did believe that he deserved every thing he’d gotten.

“Are you going to listen to me if I say something?” Rupert asked with a firm voice, trying to make his face match the tone. Jesse only nodded but, for Rupert, that was good enough. “You hurt me,” he said stiffly. “But, my God, Jesse, you don’t deserve to be treated like sex object—some toy to be stomped on and tossed aside when he gets bored with you! You have to know that—you did when you were with me.”

Jesse said nothing while Rupert stood and caught his breath. A minute ticked by and neither of them had said a word. Jesse’s eyes returned to the floor and Rupert felt semi-helpless.

None of the things Jesse had said eased Rupert’s mind.

There was only one thing he wanted to know.

Did Jesse want to stay?—stay forever, for good? He still loved Jesse, despite the festering wound he’d left in his heart, but Jesse never indicated that he loved him, too…or that he ever had.

“If you don’t want to be alone, you can stay in my room tonight,” Rupert said softly. The way Jesse’s entire body relaxed at the words left the businessman feeling happy—but the emotion was merely a hollow shell with nothing to support it. “I really want you to see a doctor tomorrow…I’ll pay for it.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said softly, looking at Rupert gently but feeling uncomfortable when he saw determination in the man’s eyes.

“But if you want to stay here for more than tonight, you’re taking out a police report. I won’t let him do this to you again—no matter what you think you deserve.”