Page 64 of What I've Tasted of Desire

I frowned and carefully turned him around to face me. “How about I heat you up a can of soup, and I’ll bring it up to you. You need something in your stomach.”

He looked up at me blankly for a moment, and then nodded.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get all snug into bed. I’ll bring up the soup, and after you eat, I’ll give you a massage.”

Alex looked up at me and squinted his eyes.

“Just a massage, I promise! Are you okay to get upstairs by yourself, or do you need me to walk you up?”

He slowly shook his head and I kissed his cheek before he turned out of my arms and headed up the stairs, holding tight to the banister as he took each step one-by-one.

“My poor baby,” I whispered as he disappeared from view. “You’re gonna get some good rest tonight, my love.”

I walked into the kitchen and opened up the pantry. There were two cans of Campbell's soup on the shelf, one tomato and one chicken noodle. I grabbed the latter. Chicken soup was what you gave people who weren’t feeling their best. It nourished the body like medicine. It took opening three other cabinet doors before I found a small cooking pot. I turned the knob on the stove and after a fewclick-click-clicksthe flame ignited and I opened the can.

I hummed absently to myself as I heated the soup, my mind racing. I let it get just hot enough to steam a bit, but not so hot that it boiled… I didn’t want him burning his mouth. With Alex’s tummy as upset as it had been all day, I was nervous to give him too many chunks, so I poured most of the broth from the pan into a bowl, allowing just a few of the noodles to fall in as well.

The alarm peeped as I opened the front door and hurried down the walk to my truck. I grabbed the small leather zipper pocket that held the owner's manual and pulled out the small fold of wax paper I’d slid between the pages.

Once back inside, I carefully unrolled the crushed-up sedative and tapped the edges of the paper until half the powder had fallen into the broth.

It wasn’t that I was unremorseful about drugging Alex. My motives, however, were benevolent. As ever, I thought only of his needs. I had to make sure Alex was going to sleep through the night. Not only was the poor boy completely exhausted to the point of sickness, but I didn’t want him to wake up and be alone if he had nightmares.

I just had to make sure I was back before the sedative wore off. He’d wake up foggy-brained and dizzy. He wouldn’t remember anything, and I didn’t want him to be alone.

When I opened Alex’s bedroom door, he looked over at me from the bed and gave me a small, tired smile. He sat up in bed and I handed him the bowl. “Careful, it’s hot. I know your stomach has been upset all night, so it’s mainly broth. Just need to get some nutrients in your system. Don’t want you getting dehydrated; you’ve been through enough.”

Alex pinned the spoon to the side of the bowl with his finger and brought the rim up to his full, pink lips. He drank down about half the broth and then handed me back the bowl, which I placed next to him on the nightstand.

I climbed up next to him and ran my fingers through his hair, and down the back of his neck in long slow strokes, massaging his temples. Just as expected, his eyes began to droop. I wrapped my arm around him. “Why don’t you lie back, baby? Just relax… I’ve got you.”

Alex leaned to the side and mumbled something incoherent.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” I murmured encouragingly. “Just close your eyes and sleep. Everything will be better in the morning.”

Not two minutes later, Alex’s body went completely limp. I cradled his head in my hand as I laid him down on the pillow. His mouth was slack, and his lips were slightly parted. I leaned over and kissed him, “I love you, Alex. Everything I do is for you. You may never know that, but it’s true.”

I took Alex’s keys and locked the front door behind me. It was early afternoon and traffic was light, so I made it to my house in about 15 minutes. I pulled into the garage and hit the controller to close the door behind me.

I flipped the light switch, grabbed the two empty gas cans sitting in the corner, and tossed them into the back of the car. I hurried into my private hideaway and grabbed the box with the gas mask and the fire jacket I had ordered months ago to accentuate myfiremanmotif, and my last three syringes of anesthetic.

I slid the syringes down into the side pocket of my cargo pants and took a deep breath. Looking around the cramped room, I smiled as a thousand pictures of Alex gazed back at me from every angle. My raison d'être. The only good thing in this miserable world.

“Oh, my beautiful boy…”

I hooked the mask and jacket under my arm and took a few steps closer to the wall. I reached out and brushed my fingers across an old Polaroid of Alex sitting at a bus stop. It had been summertime, and he’d cut his hair short. He was reading a tattered novel he’d picked up for a buck at a rummage sale the day before. He was wearing a slim-fitting long sleeved shirt, and jeans with tears in the knees. He was 17.

“We’re gonna make it through this,” I promised his younger self. “I just have to take care of a few things, and I’m gonna take you away from all of this. I’m going to kiss every iota of sadness out of your body.” I moved around the room, scanning the walls and pausing here and there to admire my favorites.

The snap of Alex at his high school graduation caught my attention. It was a fuzzy shot, and had three other people’s faces in it, but it was the best I was able to get from the day. No one else had shown up to watch Alex walk and receive his diploma. Tom hadn’t even bothered. It had been really windy that afternoon, and that graduation cap struggled to stay on his head atop all those messy curls poking out all over.

Then there was a picture of Alex walking back home from work, wearing his McDonald's uniform. It had been raining, and the poor boy was soaked to the bone. Despite being caught in the terrible weather, he still wore a small grin across his lips. It was like the cruelties of the word were just some big inside joke that only Alex was privy to.

“There’s no one like you on the planet, baby boy.”

Just as I knew it would, spending a few moments with my gallery of Alex’s pictures had calmed me down and reinvigorated me for what was to come. I sighed and turned to leave, but suddenly froze in place. I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water all over me. My heart started pounding in my ears as I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“What? How did he…”

---