The Musician and the Monster Read online

  “You restored me,” Oberon said softly. “You probably saved my life. I never expected you would do this.”

  “Is . . . that why I’m here?” asked Ángel, his voice throaty. “To do this?”

  Oberon sighed, cheek against Ángel’s nape. “Watching people helps,” he said. “I expected little more than the comfort of watching you. Listening to you. Though I did hope we would be friends, of course.” He continued petting Ángel’s chest for a moment. “I hoped that you might turn to me, as you were already partially estranged from your family, and must be lonely. I told you before, I am enormously selfish.”

  “You could have just grabbed me. Taken what you need.”

  “And absorb your fear and horror through my skin into my brain? Like a thirsty man drinking poison? No, never.”

  “I was scared. Did you feel that?”

  “Yes. It interrupted my own feelings, changed them . . . I could tell you did not find it pleasant. But that you were not unwilling.”

  Currently Ángel was, more or less, willing. Though Oberon’s powerful body pinned him fast to the couch, it was an embrace, not a wrestling hold. He could get free, if he truly wanted to. But the horrible truth was that he had never been so turned on in his life, so he continued to lie still, feeling Oberon purring against his back.

  Oberon’s hand caressed his chest and throat, making Ángel shiver. “You called me baby,” he said, his voice a velvety whisper. “Like a lover.”

  Ángel drew a breath to deny it but Oberon said, “Don’t lie. Ángel. I’ve learned so much about you this night.” His hand stroked Ángel, throat down to navel and then back up, sending jolts of terrified desire through Ángel’s body. Ángel shifted anxiously, fingers seeking purchase on the shiny leather of the couch. His butt was pressed tight into Oberon’s groin, but he felt no hard bulge there. Once again, he wondered if Oberon was actually not male, or if male fae were different from male humans.

  But then Oberon blew all rational thought out of Ángel’s mind.

  “You’re very sensual,” said Oberon. “Very sensitive. I think you are easily aroused. Quick to climax and quick to revive for more. You are made for pleasure.” His purring voice and stroking hands were creating electric shocks in Ángel’s skin. Ángel was breathing hard; he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his body approach the verge of orgasm just from Oberon’s words, his voice.

  “How you fight it, though, beloved. How you’ve transformed delight into shame. Your love of sex makes you feel out of control and demeaned, but it’s a joyous thing.” His lips against Ángel’s ear, his fingers playing with Ángel’s nipples, Oberon breathed, “I can feel it in your skin.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” protested Ángel, shuddering.

  “Ángel.” Oberon’s hand slid straight down into the front of Ángel’s jeans and firmly grasped Ángel’s cock through the cotton of his underwear.

  “Oh God,” gasped Ángel.

  He knew he should say Don’t, but couldn’t. He should stop this, but he didn’t want it to stop. The cotton protected his most sensitive skin from the shock of direct contact, but not from the controlled and commanding friction of Oberon’s palm as it stroked up and down in the tightly confined space of Ángel’s jeans. So hot, and so slow, giving intense pleasure while denying him the rhythm he needed to get off. Ángel whimpered, writhed, wanting both to escape and to thrust wildly into that burning hand, able somehow to do neither.

  “It’s all right to love it,” whispered Oberon.

  “I—”

  “I am only a man.”

  “You aren’t!”

  Oberon began to pull his hand out of Ángel’s pants, but Ángel grabbed his wrist. He pressed Oberon’s palm hard against his erection. Oberon wrapped his fingers around him tightly again, stroking. Need overwhelmed fear, and Ángel avidly fucked his hand, unable to help himself. The motion dragged his underwear down. Oberon’s bare palm found the corona of his cock, and that was all it took: Ángel’s body arched like a bow, taut with ecstasy, his head back on Oberon’s shoulder. He made no sound as delight smashed through him, but Oberon grunted, hand continuing to work the head of Ángel’s cock as come shot from it in thick spurts. Then Oberon’s mouth and tongue were on his neck, as if he were tasting Ángel’s orgasm on his skin, and Ángel shuddered, bringing his hands to his face.

  A few minutes passed. Oberon held him while his breathing and heartbeat gradually returned to something resembling normal.

  As the white-hot haze of sex slowly cleared from Ángel’s mind, the intimacy of what had just happened hit him. Oh shit.

  “That was so beautiful,” murmured Oberon. “Oh, I definitely did not expect this, beloved.”

  Aaand, that meant it was Oberon’s turn now, right? The thought was unbearable. Suddenly Ángel needed to get away. Leaving a man unsatisfied was pure selfishness. He was inconsiderate, terrible in bed—it didn’t matter. Gotta go. He tried to sit, and when Oberon’s arms tightened on him he said, a little sharply, “Let me up.”

  Oberon’s embrace fell away, and Ángel scrambled over him off the couch and staggered. Weak-legged with shock, he found his shirt on the floor and pulled it on, mopping the spunk off his abdomen as he did so. Most of it had gone onto the couch and Oberon’s hand.

  “You require privacy now?” asked Oberon politely.

  He was reclining on the couch, propped up on his elbows. His face was as remote as ever, like the surface of the moon, but his skin was practically glowing. His shirt was open to expose his lovely white chest, now strongly marked with rosettes the deep red-brown of balsamic vinegar. Ángel expected to see an erection tenting the front of his black pants, but there was none.

  Was Oberon not excited? Had what happened been totally one-sided? Or maybe he didn’t have a penis at all?

  And what could Ángel say now? Thanks? Thanks for the really effective handjob—thanks for calling me beautiful? Thanks, sorry, but please don’t ever touch me again?

  They were all the wrong thing to say, flippant or hurtful or true. “Yes,” he managed. “Privacy.”

  Oberon gazed at him silently for a moment. “Then I will see you later.”

  Ángel shivered in the shower, hands braced on the tiles. Hot water pounded on his head and poured down his body, washing away come, sweat, and whatever emotion-magic Oberon had infused into his skin, but failing to warm him.

  It wasn’t just that the fae had gotten him off in about seven seconds, although that was bad enough. It wasn’t just that the experience had—if fae physiognomy were anything like human—apparently left Oberon unmoved.

  But the way Oberon could read Ángel’s skin. Feel his feelings.

  “Quick to climax and quick to revive for more. . . . Your love of sex makes you feel out of control and demeaned.”

  True, true. Goddamn it, damningly true. And not something he’d never heard before.

  “You fuck like an alley cat,” Con had said.

  Before that: “Yeah, that’s the way you spics like it, isn’t it?” laughed the anonymous guy in the Orlando parking garage. A mean laugh, after he held him by the hair and came in his face.

  And before that: the priest, the confessional. Seventeen-year-old Ángel, gay as a daffodil, who didn’t exactly feel a deep connection to God, but who loved belonging to the Church. Even though he knew perfectly well that the Church’s stance on homosexuality wasn’t terribly welcoming, he’d somehow trusted in the Church’s welcome. Perhaps because Father Dennis was a good friend of his father’s, a kind of benevolent, distant uncle to Ángel. He hadn’t expected . . . Well. He certainly hadn’t expected Father Dennis’s weary cynicism:

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, because you’re all the same. You’ll care about sex above the righteousness or the love of God. You’ll be promiscuous. You’ll spend your life seeking pleasure, trying to find meaning in more and more and more sex, and with every orgasm you’re going to get farther and farther away from Christ. And in your soul you’ll know this
is true, but you’ll do it anyway, and you’ll die sick and alone and unloved, a million miles away from God.”

  He ducked his head under the spray for one final rinse, then turned off the shower and stood, feeling the water turn cold as it streamed from his hair down his back. He groped for a towel and scrubbed his skin harshly.

  He believed that there was nothing wrong with being gay. He believed that there was nothing wrong with having a healthy sex drive, or even with having a taste for sex that was a little rough and raunchy. He believed that being Latino had nothing to do with how much he liked sex, though he’d encountered plenty of people who did. He believed that the priest had been a bad priest, who was not supposed to talk to people that way, and who was also not supposed to out gay teenagers to their parents—Thanks a lot, Father Dennis.

  But the priest’s words had bruised him, and sometimes he could still feel the ache. There had been times he’d felt unbalanced and uncontrolled, because he wanted sex so much. Times he’d sought sex at the expense of his self-respect. A recurring, high-risk compulsion that he couldn’t seem to leave behind. A secret frenzy under the skin: “fiery chili pepper.”

  This afternoon on the couch had to be a new low.

  And Oberon had felt Ángel’s shameful weakness. Knew all about it.

  Ángel had never felt so exposed before. Just by touching him, Oberon had learned more about Ángel than any lover ever had. It was an alarmingly helpless sensation. What else had he learned? Could he feel Ángel’s physical sensations, as well as his emotions? He’d licked Ángel when he came—had he somehow tasted it? Felt Ángel’s climax? Did Ángel’s come, slick on his hand, give him accurate information about Ángel’s hormonal balance, general health, fertility, history?

  Ugh. Ángel shuddered.

  He wanted to go back under the bed.

  He pulled on warm clothes and went outside. It was clear and cold, the wind sharp as glass even through his new coat, freezing his wet hair; the grass was crunchy under his feet.

  He walked the perimeter of the wall. There was nowhere else to go.

  Eventually he had to go back in. He was, on top of everything else, light-headed with hunger; he hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and he had the kind of rabbitlike metabolism that wouldn’t let him skip too many meals.

  He went in, hung up his coat, toed off his boots, and padded into the kitchen, hoping to raid the refrigerator without attracting notice.

  But luck was not with him. As he went through the music room toward the kitchen, Oberon came out of his office. He approached Ángel, a hand extended to touch his shoulder.

  Ángel shied violently, dodging the hand and stepping away from Oberon until his hip hit the piano.

  Oberon froze. “Are you angry, Ángel?”

  “No, of course not.” Ángel carefully avoided Oberon and went into the kitchen.

  Oberon followed him. “You’re frightened?” he guessed. Like he was tasting the air, trying to figure out what emotional signal Ángel was sending.

  “Just hungry.” Ángel found some bread and peanut butter and began assembling a sandwich, aware that Oberon was watching. “Are you all better? That was quick.”

  “You are lying. You are upset. But I can’t tell what’s wrong from your expression. Won’t you tell me? Or let me—” He extended a hand again, as if to cup Ángel’s cheek.

  “Stop!” snapped Ángel, leaning away from him.

  “Ángel—”

  “No!” His hand was tight around the knife he was using to spread peanut butter. A pathetic, blunt weapon, but he was clutching it. “I get to say no, right?” he snarled.

  Oberon faltered backward, as from a hot stove or a vicious dog. “Of course you get to say no,” he said, his voice low.

  “You won’t get sick, will you? You’re not telling me you’ll die if I don’t let you touch me?” Ángel knew he had gone nasty, and couldn’t seem to help it.

  After a moment, Oberon replied, “Not touching you hardly causes the same degree of pain as learning of the death of one of my oldest friends,” he said. “I expect I will survive it.”

  Ángel’s face went hot, as though he’d been slapped. It stung; not just the words, but something in Oberon’s tone scorched the tips of Ángel’s nerve endings.

  He drew in a shuddering breath. “What was that?” he whispered.

  Oberon didn’t say anything.

  Ángel carefully braced his hands on the counter.

  Oberon copied the gesture, his fingers splayed on the granite countertop.

  Okay, Ángel told himself. Okay. Oberon didn’t understand. He was trying to understand. He had requested that they not lie to each other. He had asked for information. They needed to get clear. Ángel could do this.

  “You have magic . . .” Ángel’s words came out slowly, not sure what he was trying to say. “You have magic in your voice, and you can use it.”

  “That was wrong of me,” Oberon said. “I am confused and angry. I hurt you and I am sorry. I apologize.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “And I’m sorry for lying to you. I am upset.”

  Oberon nodded as well—an unnatural thing for him to do; he must be copying Ángel’s gesture. “Will you tell me why you are upset?”

  “I—” Ángel took a steadying breath. “Okay. I’ll try. But sometimes when I’m upset, it’s hard to talk about why.”

  “Oh. I did not know that.”

  “I’ll try,” he repeated. “So. You can’t go home again, even if you get sick?”

  “When I get sick. No. I cannot go back, and I know of no plans to send another. I am alone here, until I die.”

  “Which is why you need me.”

  Oberon’s voice had gone soothing. “This was my life before you came. This will be my life when you leave. It’s not something I expect you to fix.”

  The muscles in Ángel’s jaw and shoulder felt tight. He forced himself to relax. “You can read my mind when you touch me.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Don’t lie. You can,” he said. “This is . . . this is about privacy. Which I know you don’t understand. But when you touched me you read me like a book, and learned things that I don’t actually reveal to people. And it scared me.”

  “No. It’s no different than seeing the expressions on your face.”

  “It’s totally different. It’s— You told me there was a difference between watching and searching. You searched me. I didn’t let you. I can’t do the same to you.”

  After a pause, Oberon said, “I see. It is natural for me to touch my friends, to understand how they feel. I learned immediately that humans find my touch uncomfortable. But you and I are friends. Isn’t that right?”

  Misery choked Ángel, replacing his anger. “I know I’m not being fair,” he said. “I touched you first. I didn’t not want what happened. And now I’m being a jerk about it. I just . . . I didn’t expect you were going to . . . It was really intimate, and I—I don’t—I don’t.”

  Oberon’s voice, when he spoke, was soothing and warm. “Intimacy, like privacy, is a concept that I struggle to understand.”

  “It’s when you’re with someone . . . in private? When you choose to share your privacy with someone? I don’t know how to explain it.” Ángel backed away from the counter, leaned on the refrigerator. “They say women are better at talking about stuff like this, but the girls I know don’t talk about it with me. My mom would cut off her hand before she sat down to talk about intimacy.”

  “Then how do you know what it is?” asked Oberon reasonably.

  “You ask hard questions,” complained Ángel.

  He had no better answer than that, and after a moment Oberon said, “Ángel, I cannot read your thoughts. I am learning to read emotions on your skin, and these are always truthful, but I don’t always understand what they mean.” He paused. “Right now, I can tell that you are upset, but I don’t truly understand why. But I have made you feel unhappy, and I am sorry for that.”

  Ángel
nodded. “Same here.”

  “Thank you. I cannot turn off my perception of your emotions, any more than you can strike yourself deaf. I would not if I could. But I will not touch you again, unless you invite me to.”

  “Thank you,” repeated Ángel, through a dry throat.

  “I did not learn anything about you that was not beautiful.”

  Ángel laughed bitterly. “Oh, right. Okay.” Surely nothing about Ángel’s weak, confused nature was beautiful.

  He grabbed an apple and fled up the stairs to his room.

  Over the next few days, Ángel spent as much time as he could in his room. Oberon kept to his regular schedule of workouts, meals, and work, so it was possible to avoid him. When, over dinner one evening, Oberon broached the topic of recording another podcast, Ángel pleaded a headache: “We have some in the can, don’t we?” he said, knowing he was being cowardly. “Maybe tomorrow we could do it?”

  “All right,” said Oberon peacefully, and they finished eating without any further conversation.

  “What is the matter with you?” demanded Lily after Oberon went back to his office.

  “Don’t start,” he said.

  “But what happened?” Her smooth brow was furrowed with bewilderment.

  Which surely meant that John Va and Chandler Evanston and the rest of the security team hadn’t watched the tape and seen what had happened in Oberon’s office. That was good. But if his behavior became too much of a mystery they would watch it. And that would be bad.

  Ángel said, “He was upset because he found out his friend died. And I, uh, hugged him. And that helped, that made him feel better. But it was difficult. Have you ever touched him?”