Page 6 of Obsession of the Egoist
“On the bed, on all fours.”
Without waiting for the man to comply, Yugo grabbed his elbow and pushed him on the bed face down. Palms slamming against the mattress, the hustler glanced over his shoulder, his eyes wary, questioning.
“Look down. Stay still,” Yugo ordered and tore his belt out of the loops.
AMBER LIQUID, SWIRLING IN THE GLASSplayed with sharp edges of ice, trapped Yugo’s gaze. Gray morning crept up behind the window. Overtaking the darkness, it splashed fog over the forest, coating the naked birches in a thick blanket. Yugo barely registered it all. Sinking into his thoughts, he couldn’t help replaying the events of last night in his mind. How he’d crammed the hustler’s face into the pillow, preventing him from turning around, and how he’d twisted his arm up, bruising it. His knuckles had been sliding up and down the smooth back, failing to find the thick, bumpy scars of the whip. When the man started moaning, Yugo cringed—short, needy, loud sounds provided a sharp contrast with Kuon’s quiet gasps and suppressed groans. Wanting to quiet them, he’d clasped the hustler’s neck and squeezed as hard as he could. When the orgasm cleared his head, Yugo released the deadly grip. He remembered how the wet, sweaty sheets made him feel revolted, and how he’d left the hustler in his bed, coughing and gasping for air.
Yugo wasn’t sure how long he spent in his office, but when he returned to his bedroom, the hustler was gone, the bed—freshly made, and the brisk smell of lemons washed out the stench of sweat and sex. Yugo’s head buzzed with alcohol when he approached the bed and sprawled his tired limbs over the mattress. He didn’t care about undressing or removing his shoes. He just wanted to stop thinking about the swirling snow, and the black void of Kuon’s dilated pupils, that begged him for something. At that moment, Yugo would have given anything to get into Kuon’s head to understand what the younger man wanted from him.
CHAPTER 2
TWO WEEKS HAD PASSED. Two long, dreary weeks, filled with monotonous square tiles of the white ceiling. No one came to visit, as if no one knew he was alive, or maybe no one cared anymore? He didn’t care himself, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone. The only people he interacted with were doctors and annoying, flirtatious nurses.
Back then, with Yugo, he would have given anything in exchange for human attention or a simple conversation. Now, lying on his back in the hospital room, he felt lonelier than in the isolated white room, next to Yugo’s.
The flow of medical workers never subsided. Nurses used every moment they could to touch his bandaged chest, stick his arm with needles, and take samples of his urine. Not wanting to invite a conversation that would raiseunnecessary questions, he’d never asked what month it was, what day. At some point, he managed to steal a glance at the clipboard with his medical records. It had no name, no date, just S-Syndicate and a number.
The wound on his shoulder was closing and soon skinned over. Three days later, Kuon, sick of the idle, clinical air, left the hospital. No one asked for his insurance or his ID, and he assumed that his name would never appear in the hospital paperwork.
The provided clothes bore a faint smell of tobacco and woody cologne. Kuon couldn’t help but wonder if they belonged to Yugo, or if they had just spent enough time in his room to absorb his smell. Along with the clothes, the nurse handed him a fat envelope containing his apartment keys, a no-name debit card, and money, enough to pay for his living for a year.
Looking at the old metal keychain, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to return to his apartment. His old life had closed its gates before him, and there was no way to forget all that time he’d spent with Yugo.
Under the bright winter sun, he strolled along streets powdered with fresh snow. Everything felt surreal. No wind disturbed the air, creating the illusion of warmth, but his breath misted in the air. Kuon bent over and scooped some snow to feel the cold. It melted in his fingers, leaving his palm wet and pink.
Feeling like an alien in this bustling city so full of life, he stared at the laughing faces and wondered why he felt nothing.Didn’t I want my freedom back?
Trying to mimic people around him and stir emotions he used to have before the abduction, he stopped by a coffee shop, but perpetual noise and the overwhelming amount of people chased him away. He’d grown used to isolation to the point his mind couldn’t tolerate noise anymore. He didn’t want to use the subway or take a bus, so he kept walking until his legs brought him to his old, small apartment.
It took him some time standing in front of the door and staring at the keyhole before he could push the key in. The rumbling of the lock vibrated in his fingertips. Combined with the emotional numbness, it provided him with an illusion of a weird dream that would end anytime. He expected to wake up in Yugo’s bed, wrapped in the man’s arms, but that never happened. The emotion came later, but not the one he welcomed. A weird longing for something familiar settled in his empty shell.
He stepped out of his tennis shoes and onto the dark-gray plank floor. Clean and polished, it informed him that someone had taken care of his place in his absence. Maybe they wrote him off as a dead man, and someone else lived here now. Someone careless enough to keep the old lock?
He frowned, entering the living room where everything remained the same as he left it. The ghosts of his past lurked about the apartment, reanimating unimportant memories. The picture of his mom and dad in the amusement park hung on the gray painted wall. The memory of that day brought pain to his chest, the same as always. His mom looked so happy, so full of life. A bitter taste filled his mouth, and he turned away.
The ugly driftwood lamp, every one of his girlfriends hated, loomed at the far corner by the balcony. It took a lot of space but barely provided any light. Kuon couldn’t explain why he liked it, or why he never gave it up, but now, staring at it, he felt a weird kinship with it. It didn’t fit anywhere, just like him.
He ran a finger along a small table standing in front of the old brown leather sofa. No dust.
Did Yugo do that?Hope twitched in his chest but instantly died.That’s stupid…Why would he do that? He threw me out like a broken toy. He even gave me money, as if paying off a whore… What for? To keep my mouth shut?
The thought stirred something in his chest, but it wasn’t strong enough to spark any real emotion and instantly died out. His old self would have narrowed down the circle of people who might have taken care of his flat then he would call and thank them. Now he hoped they wouldn’t notice his return and leave him alone.
Emptiness filled his soul to the point where he couldn’t tell if he even possessed a soul at all. Maybe it was located where the bullet hit him, and now it was gone forever. He couldn’t tell.
The walls were closing in on him. The overpowering smell of floor antiseptic and furniture polish stirred a headache. He opened the balcony, but the brisk wind didn’t bring in the smell of vanilla and tobacco that a part of him wanted to detect. The thought that he didn’t belong here crossed his mind. He’d never felt this alien in his own home, in his own life before. He had to remind himself that this was his real life, the life he wanted to return to for so long. The life where he wasn’t limited to Yugo’s bedroom.
He rubbed his temple with his hand and looked out at the busy street. Colorful cars rushed about their business as flocks of young girls laughed out loud, nudging each other with their elbows. Before the kidnapping, this view would have recharged him, but now he felt exhausted merely by looking outside. His hand reached for the black curtain but stopped halfway. Closed curtains were everything he’d looked at while confined at Yugo’s. Dropping his hand, he decided that he would never close curtains again.
His gaze slid around the gray room and stopped at the phone. The black plastic handset glinted under the electric light. He hesitated. He didn’t want to hear or see anyone. He didn’t want to explain where he’d been and what had happened. He never wanted to talk to anyone about Yugo. He wasn’t sure he could face anyone anytime soon, and he certainly couldn’t return to his job. That path had perished, and he didn’t feel he had the right to reclaim it. He’d failed as a police officer, as a man, as a human being.
Guilt and a sense of duty, buzzed in his head, forcing him to pick up the phone, but he dropped it the next second.
I’ll do it tomorrow. One day changes nothing.
The mere thought of hearing someone’s voice and forcing a conversation made his stomach roil. He picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. The screen flashed with the news channel. He froze when his eyes caught the date—January 17th.
“Ten months…” he breathed, watching the people talk. The TV was set on mute.
