Pretty street boy

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A/N - As I was typing, the answers to some questions came forth, leaving behind, perhaps, only more questions. I think that Nathan\'s foremost question is one that many of us ask of ourselves... what is our purpose? I find that is a common theme for many of my various characters, as that is also the pre-eminent question in my own life. If you\'ve come this far on our journey, you may be asking: where is the sex? This IS the erotica/sex category after all! ^_^ I completely sympathize with you, but we must not hurry into anything, thus cheapening Michael and Nathan\'s relationship. As you read to the end of this chapter, I hope that you will forgive me for having the sex only as a secondary element in this tale and will continue with me despite that fact. My best to you... ~Best Left Exposed

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I was back on that street corner again, the biting rain stinging any exposed skin, the night mollified only a bit by the sickly red glow of the dim street lamp. My cigarette extinguishing quickly as I flicked it away. Huddling in my jacket, futilely, to fend off the cold and wet. Only this time, instead of Him coming for me, I made my way slowly back to my pathetic shelter in the alley. Shelter was a term that could only be loosely applied to the place I slept. A dumpster pushed away from the building\'s outer wall, the lid opened to cover the span between the metal container and brick. A large cardboard box set within that small alcove, a feeble barricade against the elements and intruders. A pile of moth eaten blankets was heaped against the chill of the ground. I climbed into my home with a sigh and tugged my soaked jacket off and hung it on the backside of the dumpster. The wind was less severe inside the shelter and I curled into the embrace of my blankets, shivering. The night became bitterly cold as the wind blew down from the North, whipping through the alley; and not having sufficiently dried from the rain, I became so cold that I ceased to even shiver. The air from my exhaled breath seemed to freeze as soon as it was freed from my mouth. It hung ominously in the air and as I closed my eyes one last time, the darkness swallowed me completely. I couldn\'t feel my feet on the ground, nor even my hair that should\'ve been hanging down into my eyes. Eyes which were now useless in the completeness of the dark, even though I searched uselessly for any evidence of light. I hung in the emptiness of the dark forever. Time was meaningless there as I floated alone. Nothing was in me to reference or call me out of the vacuum. I had no memories, I rejected them all so thoroughly. I had no feelings, those were long seared from my heart. I had no voice, for I refused to use it. Nothingness was my entire existence. And I shut my eyes even to that, dissolving into the black completely. I was gone.

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My eyes fluttered open to the sun\'s warming rays creeping across the bed in swirls of tiny dust particles that glittered like magical fairy dust. Coming back from the dream, I knew with all my being that it was not a dream at all, but truth. And being dead, had somehow come - or been brought - out of that void to this place. I sat up slowly as I came to terms with the fact that I had froze to death in that bleak alley having done absolutely nothing with my life other than suffer and exist. Deep down in my belly, I felt a twitch at that thought. Michael\'s words coming back to haunt me, \"And what if you were? What would your purpose have been?\"

I hugged my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them. I never thought I had a purpose other than suffering and existing. Yet, had not attempted to bring myself out of it. Why? And why was I here now? Where was this place - this place beyond the void? If this was heaven, then where were my parents? And how could I have gotten here in the first place, never having known religion. God and Jesus merely names that sometimes rang out from men on street corners who motioned wildly with their arms and shouted about the end of the world or the collapse of the government or any number of subjects that I had no interest in, trying to get people to \"repent\". I never had darkened the doors of any of the Salvation Army outposts, either. Having heard murmurings from some of the alley\'s other occupants. I had no need to be preached at just for a meal. Not even a nice hot one was worth hearing rhetoric that had absolutely nothing to do with me, or so I thought. Sitting there, though, I thought perhaps I should\'ve, at least one time, went inside. Even though I knew that victims couldn\'t really \"repent and be saved\", there might\'ve been some information that could\'ve been gleaned. But then again, I knew I probably wouldn\'t have remembered it anyway. Forgetting instantly any words as soon as the free food hit my mouth and settled neatly into my stomach.

Another thing was bothering me as well. Why did I have a recent memory of Michael coming to me while I was still on the street and not, until last night, any of my death? So many questions were boiling up from within me that all I could do was rock slowly in the early morning sun and watch them scramble around behind my eyes, unaccustomed to having so many in my mind.

The door creaked softly and I glanced up at Michael who was burdened with a tray. Delicious smells of food wafted to my nose and I perked up as my stomach rumbled. Michael chuckled with good humor as He sat down on the edge of my bed.

\"I thought you might be ready for breakfast,\" He said with a smile lighting His eyes.

I nodded, my eyes on the tray. He pushed it forward a bit and I lunged at it. Greedily shoving in all the usual breakfast style foods.

\"Did you sleep well?\" He asked a bit too casually. I froze, food dangling out of my mouth, hands frozen in the process of shoving it in, and looked at Him, startled. He hadn\'t moved, but His brow shifted ever so slightly upward.

I continued shoving in food trying to ignore His placid stare. My stomach was flopping despite the food and every swallow went down hard around the knot in my throat. Hot coffee burned my tongue and seared all the way down as I drank it a bit too quickly, not caring. The tray was empty and I continued to stare at it, not willing to meet His eyes just yet. When He took the tray and set it on the side table, I didn\'t have much choice but to slowly lift them to meet His clear violet ones. And that\'s when I first noticed the odd color, bright from the sun as if they had their own inner light. Who was this man? The only one in my life who seemed to give a damn about whether I lived or died. And if I were indeed dead, had claimed me from the ether to give meaning to my prior existence. Michael, who was stunningly beautiful with His soft reddish brown hair that laid in perfectly gentle sweeping waves around His ageless face and flowed down to brush His wide shoulders. And such powerfully deep emotions emanating from Him, in that almost visible aura that tickled the edges of my vision and caressed my flesh like a soft summer wind, left me breathless.

\"What is this place?\" I asked. I\'d been asking and had yet to receive an answer. I was hopeful that this time I would have one.

\"What do you think?\"

I scowled. He was good about answering me with more questions. \"I had a dream last night,\" I said changing the subject slightly. \"I died.\" My eyebrows rose, imploring Him for answers.

\"I see,\" He said noncommittally.

I clenched my jaw trying to contain the swell of anger that was slowly rising. \"You never give me any straight answers,\" I complained.

\"That\'s not specifically why I\'m here, Nathan.\"

\"Then why are you here? Who ARE you?\" I was desperate to know.

\"I\'m Michael.\"

\"I know your name!\" Then, \"you pulled me from the ether. Why? I have no purpose! Why did you bring me here only to torture me by never answering my questions?\" I broke off coughing.

He waited until the spasms stopped. \"Tell me what you saw.\"

I took a steadying breath and relayed the not-dream. Shivering with the memory of my unfeeling body dissolving into the blackness and finally losing even conscience awareness of myself. \"If that\'s what really happened, then why do I remember you pulling me off the street, was that a false memory so I wouldn\'t go insane?\"

A soft smile was His only answer. \"What if all the life you remember on the street was a series of dreams? Or what if this is? How do we define our existence, then?\"

Unashamedly, I spread my legs and looked down at my scrotum. There was nothing there but a mangled remnant of flesh. \"I have evidence that my life there wasn\'t a dream. And,\" I pinched myself hard enough to bring a sting of tears to my eyes, \"this can\'t be a dream either, it\'s too real.\" I was trying to work it out. \"I feel things here that I never could there, though.\" I searched His face intently, wishing to reach out and bury my fingers through His silky hair. I swallowed hard.

\"So, if neither place is a dream, they are both reality? Where are you? Who am I?\"

I wanted to run away. His questions confused me. I was dead. The sunshine continued to stream through the window, bright in the perfectly clear blue sky, so beautiful that I wanted to weep. Why hadn\'t I noticed it before? Was it because I *was* dead? And if so, why could I feel all those things, that I couldn\'t when alive? It seemed so ironic. A tear slid down my cheek as I stared at the sky. \"It\'s beautiful,\" I whispered. I tore my eyes away to look back at Him. \"Was it always this way?\"

\"Yes. Yes, it has always been beautiful.\"

\"And I could never see it before.\"

\"No. You couldn\'t,\" He agreed. \"But it was always there anyway.\"

\"The blackness was the Everything, then, wasn\'t it?\" I was looking back out the window again, trying to give voice to my scattered thoughts. Trying to meld them with my experiences and with what He had suggested by His questions. \"I was dissolved into it. If by becoming one with the void, I could then once more feel everything, coming back to myself, giving in to it?\" I shook my head slightly. \"This place is Creation, then?\"

\"You hold all the answers within you. Yes, you are mostly right. This is the center of Creation. I pulled you out of the Everything to bring you here. You having so much emptiness inside, not desiring for anything in life. Even with the horrible circumstances with which you were given, no enmity resided in you. No one else has ever been able to completely empty themselves thus and so you have been given a purpose.\"

\"But I did not love either,\" I pointed out. Then realization came. \"I was an empty vessel,\" I said very flatly.

\"Yes. Truly empty. It has never been accomplished in humanity before, since the beginning of time.\"

\"And now you\'re forcing all of it into me. For what purpose then?\" I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and somewhat angry at the same time. I wanted to remain as I was. And even if that meant being absorbed back into the silent void, I didn\'t care about that either. But I was drowning in His eyes again. His smiling eyes so beautiful and full of kindness and love. I reached my hand to touch His cheek. Wondering at the softness of it. Like silk over warmed porcelain, yet not hard nor fragile. He dipped His head slightly into my hand. I had never, ever reached out to anyone. I was focusing so hard on the sensations that my face screwed up into a frown of concentration. He chuckled at my look and grasped my hand to lay His warm lips upon my palm. The touch was like a jolt that flew up my arm and shot right down into my groin. And my brows shot up in surprise. His desire was palpable in the air between us.

\"You feel things, now, so keenly, because they are all new. Feeling them as you do, gives you power for what lies ahead.\" His breath was hot against my hand. \"Do you hate? Do you love? Or is there only the hot desire that burns up your veins?\" Lips were brushing the tips of my fingers.

I gasped at the sensual touch. \"I don\'t know anything of love, nor hate,\" I whispered. The fire smoldering in my eyes that watched His mouth press into my too warm flesh.

\"What of your parents, who were taken from you so cruelly? What of those boys who so brutally raped you the first time and left you for dead?\"

I hadn\'t ever really thought of what had happened in my life in a way as to place emotional value on them. My parents. I closed my eyes. Long ago, I was warm and safe and loved. And I felt calm around them. Love... I did know of it, then, as something I experienced outside myself. I couldn\'t say that I felt it from within and that made me sad somehow. I zipped forward through my memories and saw the staring faces of those boys, remembering the pain that tore through my body. Their cruel, laughing faces. Hate. So full of hate behind their eyes... but even curled in the ruins of my coat, I couldn\'t feel it for myself. Nor even when I had killed the boy by the fountain. I knew I had every reason to hate, but could not remember the burn of it in my heart. \"No,\" I said softly. \"I knew of it, but never tasted it.\"

\"What about now?\" My hand was resting in His as He softly traced the lines on my palm.

\"I don\'t know.\" I couldn\'t bring myself to hate any of those who had hurt me. If anything, I felt anger towards them, but not hate. \"No, not hate. More like anger, if I think on it.\"

\"Good.\" His eyes were hooded with His own strong desire, yet He did nothing but hold to my hand. \"What of the other, then?\"

It was difficult to concentrate on His questions with a raging hard on that we both chose to ignore, though it was quite apparent. I wanted Him so fiercely that it was all I could do to keep the moan from my voice as it grew steadily more shaky. \"Perhaps I can feel love.\" It was such an intangible thing, that feeling, and what I wished for more than anything was to burying my face in His hair and feel the press of His cock deep within me.

\"Be careful not to confuse carnal lust with love. The body rules the one while the heart rules the other. Your body must not overcome either your mind or your heart. Do you understand?\"

I whimpered, dropping my head to stare at a spot in front of my hard cock. That member that was throbbing with the need to be touched. I refused to give in to it with Him sitting right here with me. He must\'ve taken pity on me, for He reached to tip my face back up to meet His eyes, before leaning forward to press His lips, for the second time, into my mine. I moaned into His mouth and reached to pull Him closer. Never had I felt this way. Wanting something so strongly... wanting someone with so much intensity that I felt my body should burn up from the inside out.

He submitted to my embrace and moved His lips, so soft and warm on mine, to deepen the kiss. Feeling His yearning for me acutely in the pressure of His mouth, and I returned everything I felt back to Him, holding to Him tightly. I never wanted it to end. The taste of Him, reminding me of peaches and pecans; the feel of His ardor sending overwhelming jolts through my entire body. But He pulled away reluctantly, untangling my arms from around His neck. His eyes were ablaze with the same lust that was mirrored in mine. \"When you\'re ready,\" His voice full of regret, His words were like a knife plunged into my heart.

\"Why?\" I sobbed as He rose from my bed. I could see His erection tenting His pants and couldn\'t figure out why He wouldn\'t slake His own need.

\"In time.\" His voice sounded courser than normal and was straining under His self-control. He threaded His fingers through my hair, as I peered up at Him with such heart-broken longing, and pressed another lingering kiss onto my lips, which only served to elicit another moan from both of us. Then He was gone from my room and I crumpled back into the bed sobbing.

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As always, thank you for reading with me! I appreciate the amount of hits to this story, being as off the wall as it is. If you would like to take a minute to review - I would love to hear from you! See you soon in chapter six... ~BLE
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