Chapter 1, Episode 13

This chapter describes a sexual assault. Not not read it you can't handle it.

Then there was his job. Jobs. Terrorist attacks all the way over in New York, economic crashes, the CEO suddenly dying on him, a sex scandal that had nothing to do with him, more economic crashes—the man, who was excellent at his work, had miraculously gone through so many jobs that he was, from his resume, entirely un-hirable. Which, when it drove him to the occasional porn gig to pay the electric bill, the world probably judged him. He was to be forgiven for is numerous bouts of paranoia and misanthropy. Brent was, in fact, a perfect example of “it being beaten out of you.”

            Needless to say, the man just could not catch a break. But through it all, he still managed to put on a brave face. It wasn’t until much later everything came crashing down.

            Somebody upped the ante.

            It was the subject no one talked about. It’s possible that he actually snapped. Who wouldn't?  And how can you console the inconsolable?

            Afterwards, he simple gave up. No more. He walked away from every possession he ever had, and most of his friends. He turned his back on everybody else, becoming, in effect, a hermit. Being gifted with the power to absorb, and be absorbed by, stone and metal, he found a boulder in a park and took up residence in it. If there was the occasional call to house-sit, he was able to “fly” through stone as well: he simply sunk into the bedrock, up the walls of Stephanie’s building, and stepped out of the exposed brick of her walls. He couldn’t take his clothes with him when he did this—there had been a few awkward moments over the years—but it clearly did not bother him. If he was thrown into a police car, he simply absorbed into the metal of the vehicle until the coast was clear. To boot, his body absorbed the minerals it needed from the rock directly. He almost never ate real food.

            But Omri and Stephanie weren’t thinking of all of the past disasters a la Brent. It was a future one that, not surprisingly, Brent found.

            Or rather, found him.

            It was before he had “gone boulder.” Right before. The very second before. He was at a club, smack in the middle of that part of the night that where the crowd divvies up into the “look how hot I am as I ignore you forever” crowd on one side and the “look how hot I am as I judge you forever” on the other. Not surprisingly, Brent managed to be the civilian on the field between both armies when the hottest man there did not, in fact, ignore him or judge him. He all but slung Brent over his shoulder.

He was tall, a staggering 6’5’’ (Brent was “only” 6’1’’) and built like a brick shithouse. Unlike the trimmed, shaven pretty boys, he was actually rather hairy. Which was truly a thing to see, since he was a platinum blond. He looked like an Icelandic truck driver—or a trank driver. And when he came up to Brent and introduced himself, Brent could not believe his luck.

            Which should have made him suspicious.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 12

JUST A REMINDER. THIS CHAPTER WILL FEATURE A VIOLENT SEXUAL ASSAULT. IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE STOMACH, SKIP.

“Thanks for letting me keep my stuff here,” Brent replied.

            Stephanie waved it off. “It’s a big place. I was so intent on buying a showpiece I didn’t think of what I was going to do with all the space.”

            Omri sat back. Stephanie could have drifted right off a Vargas painting. She looked exactly like a 1940’s pin-up girl. Instead of sharp angles and alien-looking features, she was curves and bosoms and long, long, legs, with a small, pert mouth and large, doe-like eyes. Put her in some thigh-highs with the seam up the back and she’d be every World War II soldier’s wet dream (the straight ones), exuding an innocent, but constant, eroticism. She was the next Betty Page. Only better.

            That she was a dyke was supremely ironic.

            Although, by her own words, she was a “futch”—a “femme butch.” No dresses, minimal make-up, short bob of a hair-do. Unless she was on a catwalk, in which case, all bets were off.

            “So tell me,” Omri said at length. “What are we celebrating again?”

            “You shitting me?” Stephanie asked.

            Brent was matter-of-fact: “Good riddance to Vagabond. We can now get on with our lives! Whoopee!” He took a swig of Barolo.

            “Says us,” Omri replied.

            “What are you talking about?” Stephanie put her bottle down.

            “Come on. Can’t you feel it?”

            “Feel what?”

            “Vagabond isn’t in our heads anymore.”

            “And that’s a good thing.”

            “Yeah, but he’s not shielding us anymore. We’re in the open.”

            It was the one thing Stephanie had gone out of her way not to think about. Omri, however, always one to think too much and enjoy too little, was just the man for the job of Official Buzzkill. Both of them shot a look to Brent.

            Brent Xenos was actually one of the best people they knew. He was thoughtful of others, generous when he could be, the most non-judgmental person on the planet. If there was a wounded bird to shelter, an old lady to help cross the street, or a cry for help in the darkness, Brent was the man who came running. That he got used every single time didn’t at all dent his eternal optimism in his fellow man. For a time.

            But why the man even set foot into daylight was beyond anyone. He was, without question, absolutely, 100%, a complete loser. Which was perhaps a harsh thing to say (if only Brent wasn’t the first one to admit it) if it wasn’t for the fact that the man was a bull’s eye for disaster. His professional life, his personal life, everything about the man was a pile-up of tragedy, each more bewildering than the next. No matter how much effort he but into something, no matter his commitment, no matter the credit to his name, it was simply never enough. God loved to torture him. Period. And it was much too fun a show to stop.

            Boyfriends? He actually got the lines, “I love you but I love somebody else more” and “You’re too normal in a weird sort of way.” Getting dumped by text? Brent. E-mail? Brent. The fade-away game? Brent. Catching his BF in a mass orgy? Brent. Finding out that the boyfriend who espoused monogamy to the point of a cult was actually addicted to both sex and meth? Brent. Getting blacklisted as poz because he didn’t want to bareback a guy who was already poz? Being good enough to fuck but not good enough to commit to? Brent, Brent, Brent, and Brent-in-spades.

            And, when he decided to have a go at bodybuilding contests and devoted himself to hard 6 months at the gym—he had already been impressive at that point, just not competition grade—and could NOT come running at the drop of a hat like he used to, he was dumped cold for being selfish.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 11

**OK, FOLKS: HERE IS THE SCARY PASSAGE. I WILL DEPICT, AS THIS CHAPTER PROGRESSES, A VERY BRUTAL SEXUAL ASSAULT. SKIP THIS IF YOU'RE NOT UP TO IT.

            

VAGABOND

The water wasn’t even that cold, but the shock of feeling it without the filters of his energies nearly knocked him out.

            As the water coursed down his body, the man watched as the riverlets ran and criss-crossed his skin. Matching the feeling of the water to the sight of it. It looked like trying to observe something from very far away. Or through a fog. Something you hadn’t seen for so long that you found yourself reminding yourself that, yes, that was what it was supposed to look like. Like this. Yes. Like this.

            His hair flopped forward in a black mass of coils and tendrils, and for a second, he felt ridiculous.

            No more need for this, I guess.

            He had decided he no longer needed his powers. Not now, not after they were all dead. Because, oh, yes, he killed them all. Every last one.

            But as one promises never to do something, and then suddenly finds where they need to do that self-forbidden thing, he opened the gates of his mind, and with far more relief that he would have ever admitted, he let the Lights out.

            Its surged over the strands of his hair, in a surging flair, the dye was ripped off, and what had gone into the shower as a black-haired man, emerged, shakily still, a radiant, Apollo-blond. The Lights were gone. Again, he did not need them, but he was glad they were always there.

            Drying, he caught himself in a mirror. I look appalling. And that man is still screaming. “Shut up, already!”

            The world shook and shattered.

           

            “There you go,” Brent said, pouring the last of the wine.

            “I got more,” Stephanie assured them all.

            “Anybody care which kind I get? Red, white?” Omri called out from the kitchen.

            “Nope!”

            “Let the photographer decide,” Stephanie said grandly.

            Omri came out with three bottles. “One for each?”

            “Me likey,” Brent said.

            “Gimme,” Stephanie said, fumbling with the corkscrew.

            Omri plunked himself down. “You sure you don’t mind us all drinking through your wine supply?”

            “I hardly ever use it,” Stephanie said. “I’m hardly ever here to use it.”

            Must be fun being employed, the perennially unemployed Brent thought.

            “It’s, what, Paris, then Rome?” Omri asked the model.

            “And then Berlin and Stockholm after that,” Stephanie added. “Thanks,” she said to Brent, “for house-sitting.”

            “Better than my usual digs,” Brent replied, easing back into the chair.

            Omri blinked. “Isn’t your ‘usual digs’ a boulder?”

            “’Rent-free boulder,” Brent corrected. He tipped the wine bottle back.

            “Has you there,” Stephanie snickered. It was so easy to forget how shattered he was.