Page 121 of The Associate
He was fifteen again.
The air was cold and smelled of bleach and damp wool. He was standing in the large, echoing hall of The Hills, the one they used for assemblies and punishments. The high, narrow windows letin grey, watery light. He was not alone. The other boys from his cohort were lined up against the far wall, their faces pale, their eyes fixed straight ahead. A silent audience of the damned.
Samuel stood in the center of the room, before a small, plain wooden table. On it lay a single slip of coarse, off-white paper and a stub of a pencil. The Director stood beside the table, his expression one of profound, sorrowful disappointment.
"Write it," the Director said, his voice quiet but carrying in the hollow space. "Write the nature of your corruption. Name the sin that festers in your heart."
Samuel's hands were ice. He picked up the pencil. The lead was dull. He stared at the blank paper. The word they wanted was a live coal in his mind, too terrible to shape. He thought of Elias's mouth, soft and desperate in the dark. He thought of the feeling that had bloomed in his chest in that stolen second; a feeling of rightness, of connection, that they had told him was the foulest lie.
The Director waited. The silence from the line of boys was absolute.
With fingers that barely obeyed him, Samuel pressed the pencil to the paper. He formed the letters, each one a betrayal of that fragile, beautiful secret.
SODOMY
The word looked alien and ugly on the page, a condemnation written in his own hand.
The Director leaned over and took the slip of paper. He didn't look at it. He simply held it between his thumb and forefinger as if it were something contaminated.
"Come."
Samuel was led to the center of the room. A simple metal bowl, like a large mixing bowl, had been placed on the stone floor. A counselor stood nearby with a box of matches.
"Kneel," the Director said.
Samuel's knees hit the cold stone. The position was familiar, one of prayer and penitence. But this was different. The bowl was before him. The Director knelt as well, his face level with Samuel's. He held the slip of paper over the bowl.
"Your desire is not who you are," the Director intoned, his eyes holding Samuel's. "It is a sickness. A corruption that must be purged. Today, you will witness its end."
He nodded to the counselor. A match was struck, the flare bright and sulfurous in the dim hall. The counselor touched the flame to the corner of the paper in the Director's hand.
It caught. A small, eager orange tongue licked up the edge, blackening the word, consuming the'S', the'O'.
"Watch it burn," the Director commanded, his voice still calm, still terribly gentle. "Watch closely. That is what becomes of your corruption. To ash. To nothing."
He dropped the burning paper into the metal bowl.
Samuel couldn't look away. The flame grew, engulfing the slip, turning it into a fragile, crumbling black leaf outlined in fire. The heat bloomed, washing over his face, a dry, aggressive warmth that made his eyes water. The paper curled in on itself, the last of the word vanishing into the glow. A tendril of dark smoke rose, carrying with it the acrid, unmistakable smell of ash.
That smell filled his nose, his throat. It was the smell of an ending. They weren't just burning paper. They were burning the kiss. They were burning the feeling. They were burning the partof him that had dared to feel it. They were turning the only honest thing he'd ever known into smoke and residue at the bottom of a bowl.
The shame was not hot. It was a cold, crushing weight that pressed down on his shoulders, forcing his head lower. It was the shame of complicity; he had written the word. He had given them his secret to destroy. The heat on his face was a brand, and the smell was the proof of his own annihilation.
He knelt there, the fire dying to embers, the smoke thinning, the hollowed-out shell of himself staring into the grey flakes at the bottom of the bowl, knowing with a certainty that stole his breath: this was what he was.
Ash. Nothing. A sin that had been burned away.
∞∞∞
Present
Samuel woke with a violent start, a strangled gasp ripping from his throat as if he’d been drowning. His body was arched rigid, every muscle locked. The darkness around him was not the cold, cavernous hall of The Hills, but it took his panicked brain a second to understand that. He was drenched in a cold sweat, the sheets tangled around his legs. The smell of ash was so vivid in his nostrils he could taste it, a bitter grit on his tongue.
A sob broke from his throat, harsh and ragged.
Then, movement beside him. A warm, solid presence. Arms wrapped around him. He was being gathered, pulled sideways against a broad chest. He didn’t fight it. He couldn’t. His body went limp as the sobs took over, great, wrenching heaves that shook his entire frame.
He was hauled fully into Gael’s lap, his face pressed into the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Gael’s arms encircled him completely, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other a secure band across his back. He began to rock, a slow, steady, rhythmic motion.
