supplicium post mortem

A blind agitation is manly and uttermost. That is what his sister told him. She said it as a type of explanation when she played Beethoven. They were twins and were supposed to understand everything about one another, but sometimes lately he only pretended to know what she meant. Certainly, her fingers flew across the piano in agitation without her having to look at them, and the sheer nerve required was certainly manly; but uttermost? He felt he ought to look the word out in a dictionary, but dictionaries invariably left him more confused and stupid than when he started. They made his head hurt.

He longed, ardently, to be manly and uttermost, and to have her declare him so. At school they called him Lolly, for reasons too complex to explain to anyone outside St. Albert’s College, Nairobi. The nickname conveyed neither scorn nor approval, but he disliked it. Lolly was not manly. Lolly was not uttermost.

Unlike most boys at his school, he did not adore Games, which would have made him manly enough for his nine years. He didn’t dislike exercise per se, like the pudgy pariahs, nor did he thrive upon books, like the fey. He liked music when his sister played it, but he had no capacity for it himself. He liked the sea in Mombasa where they had lived before. He liked the animals and insects he hunted below his mother’s plantings. He liked to make believe, with others or alone. He liked doing what he had been forbidden to do. The prospect of punishment did not reduce his pleasure at transgression, but if he could do it without being caught, bliss.

You were not supposed to play with your willy in the swimming baths at school. You were certainly not supposed to reach over and play with someone else’s, no matter how much a neighbor’s willy might demand touching as they bathed naked in the cold, murky water. Jude was twelve, a Fifth Year. Jude had a magnificent smile and an astonishing willy. On Wednesday morning, in the month of March, in the year of our Lord 1926, Jude reached through the swimming bath and took hold of his willy.

He stopped treading water and grabbed hold of the edge. Other boys splashed around them. Jude blinked, lashes long, and rubbed a hand up and down his shaft. Jude smiled. It was the first time anyone else had touched his willy; the utter audacity made Lolly’s blood rush and his willy stiffen. When Jude smiled at him—conspiratorial, knowing, fancying him, him in particular amongst the others—it was enough to induce him to break every rule, violate every law ever written, punishment be damned.

Jude’s name was frequently read out after breakfast, and Lolly had seen him emerge from Dr. Steele’s study without signs of blubbing. Jude pulled his foreskin all the way back and laughed. Lolly closed his eyes momentarily and imagined Jude, standing up after one of Steele’s sixers, lashes long, knowing smile, manly, uttermost. As if he understood, Jude rubbed faster, until a warmth and blind agitation flooded him, the freckles standing out across Jude’s nose, laughter in his throat.

Jude invited him to his burrow, way up by the trees where only the elite of the Fifth Year made their burrows. Boys Lolly’s age could expect to be kicked before they approached Long Ditch, and to have their noses bloodied if they dared cross it. Lolly did approach, recalling warmness in the cold swimming baths. When challenged, he pronounced the phrase Jude had told him to say. The sentry permitted his crossing and directed him up behind the Eucalyptus trees. Upon arrival at the hut itself, he was set upon, blindfolded, and dragged inside. When released, he beheld their inner sanctum: musky, thick with cigarette smoke, Jude and his friends ranged in a circle, neckties around heads, Indian style.

“You know how to play Devil’s Hunt?” Jude asked him—challenge, warning, test.

“Of course I bloody do,” he lied.

Someone tossed a pile of cards at his feet. He met Jude’s gaze, un-knotted his tie, and bound it like theirs around his head. Jude’s eyes smiled like they had in the swimming baths. Lolly sat down Indian style, turning a steely gaze upon Jude’s friends. Outside, serene; inside, a blind agitation. He gathered some of the cards together and shuffled them.

Read other folks writing this week:

• PapaTomLA