1: The Melting of the Cruel Doctor Frost
—New Town, Prague, December 2012—
MUDr. Simon Mráz, PhD, assistant professor at the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, sat at the center table in the lecture hall, drawing stick figures on his notepad. Instead of his usual white coat, he wore a dark gray jacket that itched uncomfortably around his neck. He squinted at the paper, fighting drowsiness.
Four minutes to half past seven.
It was still mostly dark outside. Who the hell came up with the idiotic notion doctors should learn to rise early? They were no fucking bakers. He felt last night’s long run in his thighs and calves. Even his shoulders ached. He’d overdone it again.
A stick figure scratching its ass. A stick figure showing a middle finger to the public.
Two minutes to half past seven.
A stick figure biting another stick figure’s leg.
The giant lecture hall was barely half full of pale, haggard medics. Simon felt genuinely sorry for them. He wouldn’t pass the test they were facing. A significant part of the horrendous amount of information he had once forced into his brain cells was long forgotten. He didn’t even remember how he had managed the pressure of the last few exams in med school. Thank Evolution for selective memory. There had been a lot of coffee, cigarettes, and fear of choking involved, for sure. Today, he was on the other side. Nobody questioned his knowledge anymore, and this wasn’t even his field. He was just filling in for another assistant professor, playing the guard dog.
He should feel relaxed, detached. He couldn’t.
He scanned the familiar crowd of students and pretended not to look for a certain face. Simon saw him only yesterday in the cafeteria, partly hidden by the crowd, and let himself look longer than he was supposed to. He remembered the curve of the boy’s neck as he bent over the counter. The vertebrae protruding, tendons disappearing under the dark, soft hair on the nape…
Simon blinked his eyes shut and opened them again, eyeing the clock. The fool was going to miss the test. Arrogant punk. There was nothing Simon could do to get the boy out of the mess if he was going to consciously skip the exam.
A stick figure standing on its head. A stick figure biting its own leg.
One minute past half past seven.
Simon could feel the eyes of the students on him. How long could he drag it out? He’d give him two more minutes.
Two more stick figures—punching and kicking each other kung-fu style.
Simon put the pencil down and pretended to count the printed exam forms.
Four minutes after half past seven, the door creaked and Simon’s head snapped. There he was, the infamous Mr. Chrs. His hair stuck out in all directions, he had purple circles under his large glassy eyes, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. He’d obviously run here. Old, black Pink Floyd T-shirt, threadbare dark jeans and his usual red sneakers were in place. A great-grandfather of all messenger bags hung over his shoulder; his hoodie was tied to it in a messy knot. He looked thinner than he was because of the paleness and apparent fatigue in his face. The clockwork tattoo on his arm was prominent as he held a paper mug in his hand. He smiled crookedly. The two almost-white circles in Matěj’s otherwise navy blue irises made it difficult to look directly into the young man’s peculiar eyes. And he was out-of-this-world beautiful. Simon thought so, at least. He dropped his gaze before it weirded him out completely.
“Glad you could join us at last, Mr. Chrs,” Simon muttered dryly, gathering the stack of papers.
“Oh, so sorry I’m late, Dr. Mráz. I was getting you coffee. High on sugar, right?” The laughter in his student’s voice made Simon fight his own smile. A few muffled snickers could be heard through the hall. It was not the first time Matěj Chrs had been deliberately inappropriate toward Simon who always had to pretend he didn’t find it refreshing.
Simon put as much sarcasm into his voice as he could muster this early in the morning. “How considerate of you. Sit down, we’re getting started.”
Matěj left the coffee on Simon’s table, winked at him and turned to sit in the generally avoided first row. Simon went through the annoying routine—walking the rows, distributing the exam forms, explaining the rules everybody knew by heart after more than five years in medical school.
“Turn off your phones and do not open the folder until I tell you. You have forty-five minutes. Anybody who speaks, turns their head around or taps Morse code on the table is out. An answer we can’t read is considered incorrect. You need a score of at least seventy-five percent to be admitted to the interview and practical exam in January.”
The rustling of papers and clothes filled the hall, and it sounded like rain. Simon could have closed his eyes and imagined the droplets of water cooling his face. Instead, he sat back at his table facing the rows of nervous students. “Go ahead.”
Every head in the hall bent over the papers and the symphony of scratching pens commenced. Simon scanned the working students for a minute and then went back to his stick figures.
A vomiting stick figure. Surprisingly realistic. How refreshing.
He heard a sigh from the front row and lifted his eyes carefully. The whole room was engrossed with the formidable test in internal medicine. Only one student was focused on Simon, smiling silvery-blue eyes looking at him expectantly. Simon frowned. The beautiful, troublesome Mr. Chrs arched one black eyebrow and pointed his pen toward the coffee mug on Simon’s table. The movement was quick and small, but Simon immediately zeroed in on the mug filled with the allegedly sweet drink. There was a tiny folded piece of paper taped to it. Simon looked back at Matěj, but the young man already seemed to be busy with his test. Simon scanned the room. Every single one of at least forty heads was down.
Simon ripped off the piece of tape and hid the folded paper in the center of his palm. He took a sip of the coffee trying lamely to cover his movements. To his own horror, his hand was shaking visibly. Shit.
The coffee was black, bitter, no milk, no sugar. Damned smart-ass. Simon almost chuckled and then muffled it as a cough at the last second. None of the forty-plus students looked up. The curiosity was going to kill him. Forty-one minutes left.
He fumbled with the paper in his palm, feeling the texture. It was a square, no more than two centimeters. What had the boy done now? Simon tried to open it with one hand under the table. It slipped between his fingers and fell to the floor, next to his right shoe.
He scanned the room again. Nobody was looking at him. The sound of pens dancing on papers was a steady hum. He dared not look at the man in the front row. Feeling like an utter and complete idiot, he knocked his pencil down intentionally with his elbow, paused briefly, and then bent and retrieved both the pencil and the tiny square of white paper. Simon could hear Matěj Chrs smother a laugh when he straightened, the tortured old chair squeaking under him.
He stared at the terrifying white square before he finally opened the note. Nobody else sitting in the hall could see it between the mess of other documents on his table. He’d just risked drawing more attention to himself trying to hide it.
The handwriting was tiny but steady, perfectly legible. The one fateful sentence turned Simon’s neatly organized world into a medieval battlefield.
Are you wondering the same things as I am?
Under the short line was a mobile phone number.
Simon’s heart hammered; he could feel the heat climbing up his throat and flooding his face. Oh, fuck. He crumpled the piece of paper in his suddenly sweaty palm and swiftly put it in his pocket. He took another sip of coffee but coughed on it, spluttering a little on his stick-figure-covered notepad. Fuck, shit, fuckity fuck.
Was Matěj baiting him? Would Simon end up a laughing stock for the entire faculty as the sleazy queer who hit on students? There were maybe four people in the whole university staff and hospital combined who knew he was gay. It was nobody’s business. How did the guy find out? Was Simon really that transparent? He considered himself out of the closet but he didn’t exactly broadcast his sexuality wherever he went. Not that closets had any relevance in his world. Simon felt already like a Russian doll based on how many times he had to out himself. There were still so many walls and doors left. However, the general student population did not know. There was no reason for them to need to know.
Maybe the young man had paid an equal amount of attention to him during the past year…
He could feel Matěj watching him and slowly, warily returned his gaze. Matěj was looking at him in earnest, questioning. His eyebrows drawn together, the corners of his beautifully curved mouth tense. He seemed…nervous? Hopeful? When the realization hit, Simon gripped the edge of the chair under him as if needing an anchor. The young man was genuine. He meant it. He was waiting for Simon’s reaction and biting on the end of his pen. He had the guts to watch Simon make his decision right there. In the middle of an exam, no less. The audacity of the man! Simon admired him for it, envied him even. He managed an almost inscrutable smile and pointed toward the papers on Matěj’s desk. Matěj narrowed his eyes at Simon but returned to his test.
Simon spent the next thirty minutes arguing with himself. Matěj was what, twenty-four? Twenty-five at most. It meant seven years’ worth of an age difference. This was Czech Republic. Liaisons between teachers and students used to be only frowned upon; nowadays it could severely damage Simon’s career. He was gay, so of course the rumors and general judgment would be hundreds of times worse. He could end up mummifying chronic schizophrenics in some small-town madhouse in Slovakia. It was so not worth it.
Did Matěj Chrs really expect Simon to take such risks? And what did it say about Simon as a professional that he was even considering it? They’d eyed each other for months, admittedly, but the signals could still be misread. Simon should ignore it. Pretend it never happened. Surely, Matěj would get the message and back off.
Are you wondering the same things as I am…
Smooth, clever. Matěj was brilliant, but Simon knew that already. He’d spent the whole spring semester watching and analyzing Matěj like a subject in one of his studies. He’d catalogued an impressive amount of detail about his blue-eyed, tattooed student. They were equally intriguing and distressing.
***
The exam was over, all the tests stuck in a neat pile on his table. Many students lingered in the lecture hall, chatting excitedly as they packed their things. The test today would decide if they’d be admitted to one of the finals. Kind of a big deal. Not an appropriate time for pranks or private matters.
Simon felt Matěj’s eyes on him as he gathered his books and papers and stuffed everything into his oversized bag. Ripping the page from his notepad, he threw the stick-figure drawing into the bin under the lectern and left hastily as if he could outrun his own desire. The tiny crumpled note burned a hole in his pocket.
Ten minutes later, he stood squinting in the cold winter drizzle, enjoying the feel of it on his face. He lit a rare cigarette and stalked toward the metro station. No amount of nicotine and self-harm could soothe him. It was in direct opposition to everything he was aspiring to be, but he was going to do it anyway.
For once in his overly organized life, Simon was going to reach for what he craved.
***
The wiry young man with a clockwork tattoo on his arm and gauges in his ears was the last one left in the lecture hall. He approached the lectern carefully and picked the scrunched-up paper from the bin under the desk. He smoothed it out and stared at it, his eyebrows reaching to his hairline. The page ripped from a notepad was covered with neatly drawn stick figures in various, mostly painful or insulting, situations.
They called him The Cruel Doctor Frost. No one would have guessed the lonesome, mysterious Dr. Simon Mráz had a silly side to him. Enticing. Matěj put the doodles in his bag, smiling broadly.
Two hours later, a text message from an unknown number arrived on his phone.
I wonder if I can trust you.
It worked. Wow! Until that moment, Matěj hadn’t really believed there was any chance of his stunt working, and his success made him feel slightly bewildered. He suspected he might soon find himself way out of his depth. He couldn’t wait.
***
The secluded wine bar was appropriately placed in a deep cellar with bare brick walls, massive wooden benches, and it was filled with smoke. Simon had a foolish James Bond reminiscence when he sat down in a corner, ordered a glass of South-Moravian Pinot Gris and lit a black Davidoff. Appalled, he noticed he was sweating nervously and considered canceling for the hundredth time since the day before. He played with the cigarette, trying to keep his features smooth and neutral, but the chaos in his head continued stubbornly fighting it out. Judging by the churning in his stomach, Simon was expecting a baby alien to claw him open from the inside any second now.
Half a glass of wine, one quarter of a nervous breakdown, and two cigarettes later, he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He gulped. A lean, young man slid onto the bench next to him.
“Davidoff? I like those. Can I have one?” Not even a hello.
“Be my guest.”
Simon dared to look at him from the corner of his eye when Matěj lit a cigarette and exhaled smoothly, creating a perfectly symmetrical cone of smoke.
“So…” Matěj said, watching the cigarette as he twirled it between his fingers. “Feels weird, doesn’t it?”
Simon turned to him, smirking. The man never did disappoint. Clever, straightforward, ridiculously pretty. Simon fought an eye-roll at his attraction to his student. He felt seventeen again. It was humiliating. And exciting.
“It does,” he acknowledged. What happens now? He almost asked out loud.
“Anyway. Saw your art. Impressive.”
“My art?”
“Mmhm. Especially the vomiting one. I took it as a souvenir. Hope it’s okay?”
“You did what?”
“I pinched it from the bin after you left.”
Simon chuckled shaking his head. “Jesus.”
Matěj shrugged, smiling innocently. “I was just curious what you were doodling there. I didn’t expect something so wonderfully silly.”
Simon laughed again and took a steadying gulp from his glass.
“Is there a boyfriend?” Matěj asked abruptly. Simon choked on his wine and started coughing. Matěj patted his back and let his hand linger between Simon’s shoulder blades, drawing circles with his fingers. “Shh. I just don’t want to step on some guy’s toes, that’s all.”
Simon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “No boyfriend,” he rasped, still shaky from his coughing spell. What the hell was he getting himself into?
“Great.”
The long, thievish fingers stroked his back, and Simon could have lain down on the table stretching like a cat. But he feared moving because then Matěj might stop.
“Why?” he heard himself ask before he could think better of it.
“Why what?”
“The note,” Simon specified in a low, hesitant voice. He circled a finger in the air between the two of them. “And this.” Now he sounded like he was fishing for compliments. Stupid. Where was his usual eloquence when he needed it?
“Ah. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the insecure type.” Matěj smiled crookedly, and Simon scowled at him. “What can I say, I’m a sapiosexual.”
“What?”
“Sapiosexual. You haven’t heard it yet?”
Simon nodded hesitantly, the word suddenly making sense. “It’s a good one.”
“You’re scarily intelligent, look like an Edwardian aristocrat, and while you’re desperately trying to hide it, you’re adorably shy. What’s not to like?”
Simon gaped a couple of seconds, making Matěj smile broader.
“Edwardian aristocrat?” he repeated somewhat dumbly.
Matěj waved his hand dismissively. “I have a little sister who is a sucker for British romance. I used to download BBC series for her and read the subtitles. Caught a random factoid or two.”
Oh, thank God for a common conversational topic! “How old is she?”
“Eighteen. About to graduate from high school in the spring. Blonde, beautiful. Don’t ask, it’s pure hell.”
Simon chuckled, not really understanding but sympathizing anyway. He was an only child.
Matěj stubbed out his cigarette and resumed discreetly painting circles on Simon’s back. It was obvious he was being careful not to be seen. Whether it was because of their teacher-student predicament or just a plain gay-in-public fear, Simon couldn’t tell. He was enjoying himself too much to pry.
Matěj seemed unaware of how he was affecting Simon with that casual touch when he continued his big-brother litany.
“A few years back, I had a guy over for a study session and caught him slipping her his number. I kicked his ass to Mars and back, asshole.” He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “She was fifteen, for fuck’s sake!”
He waved a waiter over and ordered a pale ale, giving Simon some time to put his thoughts in order. The conversation with Matěj was like being shot at by a gang of paintball snipers. Simon barely managed to turn his head and got hit again from a different direction, splashes of color obscuring his vision.
“You seem tense. Everything okay?” Matěj looked into Simon’s eyes fearlessly, and Simon felt like he’d been sucked into another dimension. “I’m not going to tell anyone about this, if that’s what has you so worried.”
“No, it’s not…” Simon suspected what made him so jittery, but he wasn’t ready to share it. “I’m not used to this. I have never… Shit.” He dragged a palm over his face.
“Had a fling with a student? I know. You’re not the type. Another thing I like about you.” The man had no filter. Simon laughed, and it sounded just a little deranged.
“Wow, you’re…” He hesitated.
“What? Cute? Charming? Irresistible?”
“I was going for ‘blunt.’”
Matěj laughed out loud, and the sound made Simon’s heart flutter around his chest like a humming bird.
When he thought about it, Simon felt surprisingly safe. Something in Matěj’s immediate way of telling things made it hard for Simon to imagine any kind of real deception. He didn’t really see a possible motive either.
In the dark, smoky bar, they were shielded from harsh reality—displaced in space and time. The deep, rumbling voice of Tom Waits in the background made the whole scene even more surreal. Simon had an out-of-body feeling when he watched Matěj drink his beer, zooming in on the curve of the young man’s throat, the swallowing motion.
They talked about school, of course, but only comparing anecdotes, sharing opinions on things which didn’t really matter. Matěj asked about Simon’s accent and seemed surprised to find Simon studied in Brno before transferring to the city.
“And what’s the story with the ear?” Matěj asked.
“Oh, man…” Simon groaned. Not this again.
“You have to tell me! There are all kinds of legends out there. Have you heard the one with the wrestling championship? Or the field hospital bombing in Afghanistan? It’s like you’re Iron Man.”
“It was simpler than that.”
“I’m all ears.” Matěj put his palm in front of his mouth theatrically. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He was grinning.
“You’re not sorry. You’ve been waiting to say it.”
He smiled broadly. “Yeah, I have. Anyway, how did it happen?”
“There was this psychotic patient, a large woman, like a hundred and fifty kilos, arms like a weightlifter. She attacked me in the emergency room at Motole Hospital on my very first night shift. She screamed I was a Nazi and wanted to experiment on her. There were two guys trying to get her off me. I broke her wrist, and she bit a piece of my ear off. They would have sewn it back on, but she swallowed it. It was like a zombie apocalypse. This one nurse puked on my shoes when he saw the patient with all the blood running down her chin. It looked as though she’d eaten half my face.”
Matěj gaped at Simon before he burst out laughing. “You’re such a bullshitter. There’s no way it happened!”
“It didn’t. I got bitten by a dog as a toddler. I don’t even remember it. But you can’t tell anyone! I like the one in Afghanistan better.”
“You would, of course. So noble.”
Matěj sipped from his beer eyeing Simon speculatively, making him squirm in his seat. It was getting late; the underground wine bar was emptying out. In their corner, if only for a moment, they were alone and unseen.
“And what else are you wondering?” Simon asked on a whisper, gathering courage.
There was a beat of silence. Matěj smiled, parting Simon’s lips with his thumb, and leaned in. “Mostly whether you’d let me do all the things I want to do to you. And how it would feel.”
A split-second storm rushed through Simon’s body, leaving a disproportionately small, silent gasp in its wake. Simon enjoyed the freedom to study Matěj’s features from such a close distance, disturbed only by his own body’s uninhibited reactions. The corner gave them merely an illusionary sense of privacy. He had to get Matěj out of there. Now. It was going to sound terrible but he went with it anyway. Desperate times…
“I live only a few minutes’ walk from here,” he began but stopped upon seeing Matěj grin with his tongue peeking out between his teeth. Simon’s eyes widened.
“Oh my, Dr. Mráz, you move fast,” he chuckled.
Simon turned his head away and hid his self-conscious smile behind a face-palm.
“You really have to stop calling me that,” he said on an exhale.
Matěj bumped his shoulder. “C’mon then, Simon. Let’s get out of here.”
***
They walked to Simon’s loft, keeping a respectable distance between them. Simon looked around nervously in fear of familiar faces. He was surprised how much he enjoyed their casual banter. He didn’t catch anything in Matěj’s behavior which would remind him of their unequal age and status—except for the inappropriate jokes, especially designed to remind Simon of exactly those things and to show how little they meant to Matěj.
In the hallway in front of his door, Simon hesitated, nervous and confused by the amount of anticipation. It was fast, too fast, and very unlike him. Yet it felt so damn good to leave the shuffling crowd of the undead behind for once. Before he had time to decide on his next move, he found himself pressed with his back to the wall. His brain imploded, leaving him with barely enough cognitive capacity to keep his body upright.
This was so unfair. The second Matěj walked into the lecture hall the previous morning, Simon had been swept away like a fragile little damsel. He briefly considered somehow conveying the message he really wasn’t the submissive type, but it would require some rational thoughts, and Simon was devoid of those at the moment. Instead, he gave out a low groan and let his hands roam Matěj’s back from neck to tailbone. Matěj kissed him long and thorough, and Simon heard a very contented humming noise only to realize seconds later it was him making the sound.
When Matěj stopped the kiss later, Simon tried to follow his leaving lips on instinct, making the man chuckle again. No point in pretending indifference anymore, then.
“I can’t go inside right now,” Matěj said in a low voice. “If I did, I would never leave. And I need to be home in an hour.”
“You have a curfew?” Simon grimaced at his joke. Why he aimed to spoil his own good mood he’d never understand.
Matěj laughed anyway. “No, but my sister does. I have to be there to see she follows through.”
Simon managed a nod.
“I want to see you again soon,” Matěj said, his features a little strained. “I really like you, but I’m not looking for anything serious.”
“Anything serious would be rather convoluted, considering our respective situations, don’t you think?” With the irrational surge of bitterness, Simon found his vocabulary again.
Matěj smiled. “I love it when you talk like that.” He gave Simon one last brief kiss. He tasted of mint and cigarettes, of youth, pleasure, and freedom. “I’ll text you.” He turned to leave.
“I can’t do anything to improve your grades, you know,” Simon mumbled, lamely masking the sudden feeling of loss.
Matěj’s voice sounded sharp when the man threw his last words over his shoulder. “I don’t give a shit about grades. I’m going to be the best fuck of your life. I promise you that.”
And he was gone.
Simon stared into the empty space in front of him, his eyes wide, cock hard, and face hot. He needed a shower. Immediately.