STALK ME : A M/M Dark Romance Novel Read online

  Henry

  THE HEEL OF MY boot twists and shifts the twigs and dirt beneath it.

  Drawing back into the semi-darkness, I tuck deeper into the elm tree I’m leaning against, making myself more comfortable and settling in for the next few hours when I’ve already been standing here for at least two, ignoring the scratch of the bark along my leather jacket. The cold wind rips across Central Park this late afternoon and the sky has turned a heavy gray. So heavy it looks as if it’s going to fall down on us.

  The sweet melody of Johann Sebastian Beach’s “Cello Suite No. 1” drifts on the wind.

  It mixes in with the scent of damp earth, roasted peanuts, and winter.

  Taking another long draw of the cigarette held by my fingertips and resting between my lips, I inhale the smoke and let it move around in my lungs, reveling it. Fuck, it’s almost post-orgasmic. Then, I stare up at the sky, scrutinizing it. The clouds drift by in a northeasterly direction. They’re carried away swiftly by the wind. It whooshes by me and takes the strands of my hair with it along with all the dead leaves which litter the ground around me. The cold delivers little shocks to my skin and reminds me that I’m alive. I shut my eyes and revel in the sensation and then I open them again and my gaze is back on the sky above. The gray way up there begins to darken to black.

  There will be no rain coming though. I can tell. I can always tell. Only more cold weather will arrive tonight and settle over this city. I’ve never minded the cold. A man like me really shouldn’t.

  Perhaps it’s because I’m the dead among the living.

  Numb.

  Hard as bone.

  An unfeeling sicko.

  Special.

  At least that’s what my dear mother had told me once…

  Think I was around seven years old or so when she gifted me with those words. I never understood what it meant. Expected to be scolded. But instead, she clawed our exsanguinated cat, Blossom, from my clutches and placed it in a shoebox before sliding the top on it and pushing it out our view. Then she pulled me close, peered right into my eyes with her terrified ones and speaking with the softest tone laced with so much love, said, “Henry Courtland Cushing, you will be too much for this world.” Georgiana had told me that although she will never forget the sunny Tuesday morning when she gave birth to me, which she described as one of the happiest and most profound days of her life, that still, I didn’t belong here. That no one would ever understand me. She told me that I would be destined to lead a life alone and hiding in the shadows where no one could see me because I wouldn’t want to be seen. She stated that it would be best for me. They were words that took me many years to understand. I certainly and fully comprehend them now.

  People are afraid of what they don’t understand.

  A smile stretches across my face and then my gaze sweeps across the park.

  Today, he is sitting on that same bench a short distance away and in the same position.

  Always alone.

  Always dressed in the same shitty clothes.

  Always with the same look on his face…like life has already been extracted from his veins with a straw.

  Always so, so fucking blue.

  Wavy blond strands cut short and swept away from a gentle face… Sad blue eyes. Ivory skin. A delicate smile. These are all the things the man ahead of me is made of… Six feet tall. Two hundred pounds. A man who possesses a distinctive gait that I could spot from a few nautical miles away.

  Now, he sits statue still. Posture stiff. Head neither turning left nor right even though his gaze is fixed on everything happening ahead of him as if it’s the best entertainment he’s ever seen. And I can tell it brightens his day just to come here and sit in this park each day. Although he must be the saddest boy I’ve ever seen, he’s gorgeous.

  It only makes me more curious as to why he’s alone. I’d assume that anyone who looks that sad would be alone. I’m depressed just looking at him. Not sure who else would want to be around it, honestly. Perhaps there is a dead bird in his pocket.

  An odd smile tugs at my lips while I spend some time thinking.

  I’ve learned over the years that solitude can be vicious for those who don’t wish it. It breeds desperation. After an extended period of time, it leads to a melancholy state most would have difficulty pulling themselves out of. Eventually, it forces humans to act out in ways which are “unhealthy” for the psyche and the soul.

  The man who sits on the same bench alone and watches the world go by as if it moves in slow motion holds a certain type of sadness in his beautiful blues that I’ve only seen on a few occasions before in my lifetime. It’s the look of a man who’s barely holding on to this dimension and who’s trying to find more reasons to live than he knows he currently has.

  What’s the fun in killing a man who clearly doesn’t want to live?

  I can tell you it’s no fun at all, just no fun at all…

  Laughing softly to myself, I draw in more smoke and exhale it all out in a long breath allowing the wind to take it away.

  Something tells me that “Cooper” doesn’t enjoy his own solitude.

  I’ve been watching this man for months, which for me is an oddity in itself.

  Patience isn’t usually one of my virtues and neither is toying with the prey after I’ve hunted it down.

  Yeah, this isn’t one of those stories where I’ll string you along, drop odd details and silly hints to make you wonder whether or not I end people. It’s all riveting, believe me, but never daring to waste your time or bore you, I prefer to get straight to the point. I do end people. I am The Reaper.

  Sure I am feared by the Devil himself—selfish prick.

  After thirty-two years of knocking, he still won’t let me in.

  By now, most like me have lost track of how many souls they’ve sent away, but I never forget them…The pretty young woman who used to tend to the roses in Georgiana’s garden when I was a teenager. My father’s bimbo of a mistress. My brother’s asshole crush. The middle-aged man who ran the small shop on 57th and Lexington who always gifted me with some fucked-up expression on his face each time I had another guy on my arm. My ex-lover—a man whom I loved dearly. The old hellcat who lived on the 79th floor of my former apartment building on the Upper West Side and who insisted on letting her English mastiff take a giant dump on the sidewalk like it was a daily offer of gold to this city that one of my Manolos often found itself mushed in. The oversized cow who wrote me a parking ticket on Riverside Drive a few weeks ago after I asked her oh so nicely not to.

  I suppose the details don’t matter. Neither do the reasons. Sometimes there are reasons though. Sometimes there aren’t. Sometimes, I simply have too much time on my hands.

  Nevertheless, I would never suggest for anyone to look too deeply into the filthy recesses of my mind. Along with finding themselves massively dirty afterward, it will be a fruitless search because ultimately they’ll find nothing there…

  Besides, not everybody put in the ground doesn’t deserve it. Some fucking do. Most of humanity is usually too self-righteous to admit this simple fact but it’s a universal truth. Not every “victim” is a true victim.

  I settle into my thoughts…

  Fifty-two humans.

  All sent away to Heaven, Hell, or to be stuck in some tortuous purgatory in between.

  The number is etched into the palms of my bloody hands and keeps growing and growing and growing like some out-of-control debt because I can simply never stop. It’s become an addiction—controlling the fate of those around me, playing God so to say. It imbues a man with a power that can be difficult to free themselves of once they’ve had a taste of it.

  And everyone likes a little power, don’t they?

  Everyone needs to feel somewhat in control sometimes. It’s only human nature to want to be in the driver’s seat of your own destiny. To have desires and wants and needs which need to be fulfilled. Only weakness allows us never to admit this. And the man I’ve been watching should have been dead a long time ago….

  Maybe it was the day when I watched him leave his apartment on the Lower East Side on that foggy morning a few weeks ago. He kept his head low, walking a few blocks before disappearing into the subway station. I had let him go... Or maybe it was the night he had wandered out of a shady dive bar in the Bowery surprisingly upright. I had let him go… Or maybe it was the night when I had waited in the alley behind the dumpster just outside of his apartment building watching him as he dropped a few bags in before he strolled away. Still, I had let him go…

  As you can see, I’m simply too intrigued to send him away…

  And now I find myself becoming so patient with this man that normally I’d consider it sloppy.

  Usually, when I’ve ever cared enough—which is almost never—a simple Google search of a name would help me to quickly put the pieces together about a person’s life, make connections, discover the crucial details I needed to know.

  Initially, typing this man’s government name into the search engine didn’t reveal much. An address here. An old job there. A social security number which didn’t have much attached to it in terms of income, savings, or pension earnings. A few tax filings with the IRS popped up which had only confirmed the same. I had to dig deeper, and when I did, a little more was offered up. But it still wasn’t enough. It was all a tortuous tease and I wanted so much more. I knew I’d have to fill in the holes of his life on my own, searching, searching, searching and discovering new details about his existence. Naturally, they are revealed by the passage of time, as I follow him day in and day out around this city like a second shadow learning his likes: punctuality and expensive stationery, and his dislikes: yellow cabs—because he prefers to walk—and seafood. The places he likes to go. The ones
he consistently avoids. Where he buys his coffee. Where he shops for his groceries. The places he frequents when he isn’t holed up inside his apartment, which is much of the time, when he is usually consumed by his literary work—which is no doubt directly connected to the bachelor’s degree in English literature obtained from Fordham which he possesses.

  Nevertheless, I’m super patient with the entire affair. Relaxed. It’s no rush… One should never put strict time constraints on a waiting game. Defeats the purpose. Makes it all a lot less fun.

  I could easily hire someone for this shit, of course, but I much prefer to do it myself. See everything up close and experience it live and direct. Besides, I have nothing but time on my hands these days….

  Leaving the cigarette between my lips, my eyes find my right hand and then the left one. I splay my fingers, then examine my palms, then turn them over to look at the lines in them. Some are much deeper than others. The lines tell a story. A terrible story. These hands can either love or hate. They can either touch or terrorize. I flex my fingers and the breath I let out is so big my chest deflates with it.

  These hands…

  So much ash has slipped through these fingers. Bone too.

  Georgiana always told me that I should keep my hands to myself…for obvious reasons.

  I try my best to do just that these days, never touching anything or anyone unless absolutely necessary. Determining when it’s “absolutely necessary” is relative, of course. These hands are a life force all on their own. Often, I cannot control them. They crave contact and connection even if it turns out to be perilous for the person they touch. I usually can’t tell how it will turn out for them which is part of the rush.

  Taking another long suck of my cigarette, I stay observant. I’m always observant.

  The children play. People move through this park—walkers, runners, cyclists. A pair of New York City’s useless sit perched atop the two of the most beautiful black quarter horses I’ve seen in a while. I haven’t seen horses this stunning since Thornfield.

  That’s another matter…

  It’s a shit story I don’t want to talk about just yet. We’ll get to it eventually…

  I shove the memory from my mind because I don’t like it there. Drawing more smoke into my lungs, I focus back on the horses. Their coats shine despite the cold. Heat clashing with the cold, the air being forced from their snouts mists ahead of them and is aloft for a while before it dissipates. The metal shoes affixed to their hooves beat against the pavement in a disordered rhythm as they shift occasionally, clearly restless. The officers tip their helmets to passersby and mutter words to them I won’t bother to make out. Everyone goes on about their day as if it’s just another one in the week that they’ll live perhaps not to the fullest and quickly forget about.

  I could never understand the human inclination to think this way.

  No day is the same.

  It should be appreciated no matter how mundane or blah it turns out to be.

  As for some it turns out to be their fucking last.

  Humor tugs at the corners of my mouth and I allow myself to smile if just for a second. A cool wind washes over me. Breathing it in, I slump against the trunk of this massive tree. Then I shove both my hands in my pockets and focus on the man sitting on the bench across the park. I’m reminded that he’s proven to be more elusive than I had expected. He’s off the grid. Incognito. Much like myself, he has proven to be a ghost albeit without the white bedsheet pulled over his head along with its cutout holes for eyes. He’s a man who moves around the world unnoticed, unaccounted for. He simply does not matter.

  I know the feeling…

  Slanting my head to the side, I stay focused on Cooper Ellison Miller and enjoy my smoke.

  Each day he arrives here at the same time, sits on the same bench and does not move for hours. And each day I follow him here, position myself near the same tree and watch him finding it all almost too interesting for words. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why I watch him.

  Right now I’m working extremely hard to figure it all out.

  Maybe I’m fascinated by his sadness.

  Captured by his loneliness.

  Intrigued by his solitary existence.

  A hum leaves me and then a little nod before I take a long draw of my cigarette and then exhale.

  Cooper manages a tiny smile which stays put when the children’s laughter picks up and their playing grows rambunctious and out of control. I find myself smiling at his smile—at his joy. He’s truly finding a little happiness while watching them. His eyes grow a little brighter.

  Shifting where I stand, I linger unable to tear my eyes away from what’s ahead of me.

  Cooper admires the children’s innocence.

  So do I.

  It’s painted all over them—rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and smiles so big they look like they might hurt their sweet faces. The children laugh and play. There is no fear or worry. There is no selfishness. No reservations in their mannerisms. They are simply themselves. Being. Living. Breathing. Free from judgment, persecution, and criticism. Pure and alive. Untouched by the shit of life. Protected by God.

  Envy rips through me that I cannot relate and mostly knowing I never will.

  I flinch.

  Blinking a few times, I’m yanked back to the present when a gust of wind collides with my cheeks. Quickly, my vision is back on the man sitting alone on the bench across the park. There is something boyish about Cooper in this moment which I can’t quite put my index finger on. I notice something pure in his eyes. A hope. A wish. An ideal. A realization that there is still good all around us.

  A laugh bubbles up inside me though I’d never let anyone hear it.

  It might be a foolish thought to imagine a perfect world, but it is one Cooper is still allowed to have.

  Cooper Ellison Miller.

  My blue, blue boy.

  Sad.

  Alone.

  Like he’s the last man on earth.

  Hopeful.

  Nodding a few times, I’m still smoking, still looking in his direction. “Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn. The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn. Where is that boy who looks after the sheep? He’s under a haystack, fast asleep. Will you wake him? Oh no, not I. For if I do, he’ll surely cry.” Laughing a little, I stub my cigarette out into the palm of my hand and then shove it into my pocket. No littering. Making myself more comfortable against this cold, hard tree, I don’t stop watching him. He has my attention indefinitely it seems.

  Cooper Ellison Miller it seems has no choice but to be alone.

  However, for a man like me, being alone isn’t just a choice…

  It is the only option.

  Rafe

  I’M PRETTY SURE THIS place hasn’t been dusted properly since around 1955.

  At least someone tried…

  Staring down at the filth pressed between my thumb and two of my fingers, I rub them together and huff before I brush off the dust on a pant leg and eyeball the shelf in front of me with disbelief, maybe even disgust. Each one is stacked from end to end with old reference books and piled high with loose and yellow pages along with manila files that could be older than Lady Liberty herself.

  I turn away from it all not wanting to acknowledge any of it at this late hour.

  Cypress Hill’s “(Rock) Superstar” drifts from the radio playing across the room.

  Massaging the back of my neck and groaning, I stroll across this usually crowded communal office staying focused for a little while on the ugly linoleum beneath my shoes. A hand is sent through my hair, tangling with the strands, tugging and pulling, expelling some of the frustration I feel tonight. I’m always frustrated—suppose it comes with the job, like long late nights, divorce, and the eventual urge to commit suicide. I don’t dwell on my own thoughts—not even for a second. Countless months spent studying for a bachelor’s degree in psychology at NYU had taught me that without a doubt ruminating is one of the worst things a person could ever do to themselves. It’s living life on repeat, questioning, wondering, examining the different outcomes in the mind that could and would never occur because the time had already passed. It is a special type of mental torture no sane person should ever put themselves through. So, since I am well informed, I think a shitty thought and then I simply let it go—the way it should be.