The Last Handful of Clover - Book 2: Gifts Both Light and Dark

2.32 Morning Sunlight

June 13, 4:25 pm

This time it was not the hot tub that the Wanderer conjured from Richard's mind. This time, it was his own bedroom. And the memory his adversary had chosen was one that could not have cut more deeply into Richard's heart.

Keith was face up on the bed. He was naked, and the sheets were lying in disarray on the floor. Morning sunlight streamed through the venetian blinds, illuminating his lover in a striated, angelic glow. Keith's eyes were closed, and there was a smile on his face.

Richard remembered this moment vividly. This was just months after the two had started dating. Keith still looked like the young man he had met in the hot tub. Even then he was shaped like a teddy bear, and his soft, round belly rose and fell rhythmically, as if he had just fallen into a gentle slumber.

Richard remembered the day.

It was late on a Saturday morning. They had just made love, the way they both liked the best. Keith's hairless, soft torso and chest rose above Richard as he lay on his back. Keith straddled the older man and had moaned with so much unrestrained passion that Richard had worried that the sound would travel to the street. Richard's cock had been deep inside his lover, and the sound of Keith's moaning had taken him over the edge. The orgasm shook him with such power that he thought he might pass out. Only when it had passed did he realize that Keith's lips were on his own, and his hand had been working his own cock. As they kissed, his lover gasped and Richard felt the hot stream of semen spraying between them, soaking both of their chests and bellies.

He was so young, Richard thought. In fact, we both were. Even though it had only been ten years ago, and he had been well in his forties, the years since then had taken their toll. Back then, they had rutted together with as much joy and abandon as he had ever known, and he had been convinced they would both live forever.

He looked at Keith's naked body, now lying on the bed, the semen still glistening on his belly. This was exactly how he had looked when Richard came back from the bathroom, with a towel for them to share. But he remembered now he'd hardly needed the towel. Seeing him there on the bed, he had bent down, and gently licked the wet spots from the man's belly, delighting in the taste of Keith's seed, and knowing he had left his own deep inside him. Keith had giggled from the feeling, and his hand had toyed in Richard's hair. The smile on his face that morning was one of the most beautiful things Richard could remember from their entire life together, and seeing it all again now felt like a knife, carving his heart right out of his chest.

As Richard stood at the side of the bed, looking at the naked body of his lover, he knew the Wanderer had chosen this moment from Richard's memory intentionally. And he hated him for it.

At first, he didn't see the old man. He must have been following behind Richard as he exited the bathroom. Eventually, the thing hobbled past Richard's right shoulder, and made his way to the foot of the bed, where he too stared at the naked young man who laid there, smiling and waiting for his lover's return. Then he looked at Richard who was suddenly acutely aware of his own nakedness. He wanted to cover himself with the towel in his hand, but found himself unable to move. All he could do was stare at the old man, as he eased himself down onto the foot of the bed.

Like both himself and Keith, the old man was also naked. The silent tableau was like the aftermath of some dreadful threesome, except that Richard couldn't bear to look at the gray and wrinkled body of the creature. The contrast between the beautiful young man he had just made love to, and the disgusting old crone so near to death, could not have been more stark. Or disgusted him more utterly.

A paper sack full of curtain rods, he thought once again.

"He's a chubby little thing, isn't he?" the old man said, and he laughed, a high-pitched cackle that made Richard's skin crawl. The creature looked up with a smirk on his face, and his eyes bored into Richard's soul. "But I guess you like them like that. Young and chubby, I mean. Sweet and tender. This little piggy's basted in his own juices, I see. I imagine you like them that way too..."