RHO

 

Marcus Troy’s Funeral

PRESENT DAY

 

He looked poignant.

His beauty unmarred by the rain, or the tears that fell from his bloodshot eyes or the bruised swollen skin that surrounded the stitched up cut on his left cheekbone. Someone offered him an umbrella and he shrugged the man off. There was something in his hand, a single red rose, that his fingers were wrapped around. He kept glancing at the ground in front of him, his grief apparent like the markings on his soul, impossible to hide.

Just like Adam to cry over the death of the man who destroyed him, the one who was responsible for all that pain and misery that surrounded us ever since I first saw him at the Brooklyn Bridge, the first time I saved him. It was strange looking at him now as a spectator, he was clearly part of Marcus’s immediate family and I felt like an outsider watching him from the sidelines.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut then, a man deep in prayer. When he opened them, he looked determined. He lowered himself to the ground, on his knees, and he set the rose on the raised earth in front of Marcus's tombstone.

The last thing I wanted was to feel sorry for Marcus but I couldn’t help it. The funeral and all that mournfulness surrounded me, and it might have changed my stance. I knew that most of it was pointless nostalgia but I guess I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t conflicted.

Adam lingered for a few moments, saying his last goodbyes.

He was up to his knees in mud. His pants and Converses were obscured in gray murk and there were grimy stains on the front of his white dress shirt and his sports jacket. Adam never liked messes, or being part of a mess but I guess things change. The stuff that seemed important, stops making sense. You realize the futility of your various idiosyncrasies. You become part of the same vicious cycle you thought you’d never get trapped in.

He was still touching the rose that stood a bright, blood-red against the murky ground, unblemished and unsullied, symbolic of hope and innocence.

If I could, I would have fallen in love with him all over again. But you don’t get over a guy like Adam long enough to do it a second time around. A million lifetimes weren’t sufficient. His flushed skin and tiny freckles, the blonde hair, and blue eyes. Looking at that face, you wondered if Aphrodite hadn’t in fact given birth to him, but kept it a secret so he could be raised in the home of a nymph. His body was on the skinny side but toned, and you could make it do things that I'd rather not talk about.

I watched him get up, and out there in the rain and the murk and the sadness, he wasn’t some mere mortal, he was Aeneas, come to claim his throne. There was a quality about him, an idyllic charm, like the thought of woods in the Italian countryside. It filled you with hope. It felt like home.

He saw me and our eyes met. A hoard of people surrounded him, most of them had worked for Marcus, but there were some new faces. Even though I never personally met them, I knew who they were. The three most expensive suits belonged to the Superiors, and it was odd that Marcus’s death had brought them out in the open. It was a testament to the man’s talent. He always brought people together—when the people in concern weren’t his whores. Not that I would use a word that flagrant and dismissive for Adam. Even Marcus had stopped calling him that. It was common knowledge he had feelings for the boy that the boy didn’t reciprocate.

I just didn’t realize how serious he was until I saw that ring Marcus started keeping in his pocket. No one seemed to care that the man had a wife and two kids, or that one of them was Adam’s age. No one cared that Marcus tormented the boy, or that he didn’t want anything to do with Marcus. They cheered when the boss announced Adam would be his only whore. Even now, the horrific memories of Marcus’s torture, and the systematic abuse, and mistreatment made my blood boil. How are you still crying for that man?

Adam was staring down at Marcus’s grave. Monster. I pushed past the women in their black attire and made my way toward him. I placed a hand on his shoulder. Instead of trying to keep a straight face, Adam grabbed my coat and started crying into my chest. The act was so genuinely heartbreaking it made me want to cry. And I never cry. It might be because I’m dead inside, or because it was the only way I knew how to live from the myriad of foster parents who raised me. I learned to keep it bottled up but Adam was nothing like that. He felt everything, sometimes a bit too much. He was sincere. A trait I found unreasonably attractive in theory but it meant many sleepless nights when something was bothering him and I couldn’t even reach him. But I learned to keep my silence. I’m used to pushing down my feelings about Adam. I’ve even managed to live with it because Marcus would have shot us both through the head if he found out.

Everyone was staring at us but Adam didn’t seem to care. I tried to console him, but I wasn’t sure if I was mourning Marcus’s death. I couldn’t even understand Adam’s sadness. I guess I wasn’t happy either. For all his faults, Marcus practically raised me. He was in his forties, more than a decade older than me but he had always been wise beyond his years. He gave me a second chance at life, saved me from my demons when I was throwing my life away on booze and gambling. Since then, I promised to do everything for Marcus, no matter what the cost. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and Adam was one of those mistakes. I knew this and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Marcus did for me. But it still didn’t feel like mourning.

I pulled Adam away to take a glance at his face and it was a mess. He was still only just a boy. A nineteen year old kid who had been forced to grow up. “Can we talk?” I said, trying not to sound too casual. There were a million eyes on us. I hated that feeling, of being watched constantly, like they were challenging my every move. It was to be expected, I was Marcus’s second in command. Everyone expected me to show off the proverbial knife I used to stab my boss. Even though that wasn’t at all the case, people would speculate. I had been with the family long enough to know these things. But Adam was oblivious. It wasn’t surprising. He still possessed a strange gullibility and sometimes that made him culpable for the stuff that happened to him, but I knew he wouldn’t change for anyone. He did change for you. He loved you. Even when you didn’t deserve it. Even when you broke his heart. Adam turned to the three men standing next to us, the Superiors who whispered something back, to which Adam nodded.

Finally, he walked toward me. We took slow steps away from the funeral and Adam looked perplexed. “Is everything okay?”

“I was about to ask you the same.”

“Why do you always worry about me, Rho? I’m fine.”

“You’re fine?” I stopped walking and glared at him. “I know you’re suffering, and I don’t blame you because you’re a good person and I admire that, but Jesus, Adam! Marcus was a monster. You know that better than anyone. You don’t have to stay here anymore, we can just leave. Put this place in the rear-view mirror like we always wanted!” Take me away, Rho. Even if he finds us, even if it’s for a day, I want to live life on my terms, and not being Marcus’s slave. I’d happily die for it. I couldn’t understand the look on his face, or the silence. “Or is that not what you want anymore?”

“Can we please talk about it later?”

It was pissing me off but I decided it was better to wait. “Why don’t you come to my apartment?”

“I think maybe you should come over. It’ll give the impression that I don’t care about Marcus’s death, that I didn’t feel connected to him.”

“Since when do you give a shit about what impression you leave?”

But Adam cut me off. “Come by around eight,” he said. “We’ll have a late dinner.” He leaned in and whispered the next words in my ear. “Then, I’ll fuck your brains out.”

At first, I thought I heard it wrong.

It took me a while to realize that those were the words he’d spoken. My beautiful, pure Aeneas, who had the soul of a saint, whose moral compass was so strong, you could set your spiritual GPS to its coordinates and never get lost. The son of a goddess. The virgin sacrifice. I love you, Rho.

He kissed me lightly on the cheek.

Everything came rushing back, all the stolen kisses we’d shared and the loneliness we’d been a part of, and the knowledge that finally something would become of all this, that we could be together at last. I stifled the urge to grab him and fuck him right there, in the middle of the cemetery with everyone watching, even Marcus’s widow and the elderly people in wheelchairs. I wanted to tell them who Aeneas really belonged to and it wasn’t Marcus. I always loathed the moments when we weren’t together. I loathed them even more now because now, heaven was so close I could feel it’s warmth on my face. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness. My lily of the valley, growing among brambles, soon I will have your soul.

Adam went back to Marcus. His funeral, not Marcus himself. Marcus Troy was dead and buried, and six feet under. Fuck you, Marcus. Fuck you and your need to feel superior. You’re dead now. And I’m alive. So, fuck you!

One of Marcus’s aides, Ian, was clearly drunk, grabbed Adam’s arm before he could rejoin the Superiors. “You can play the grieving widow all you want,” Ian spit out his words and it was obvious he didn’t care who heard him. “But I know the truth, Adam. And dead or alive, some of us are still loyal to Marcus!”

Adam didn’t say a word in his own defense. He looked a little rattled but composed himself fast enough. One of the Superiors started whispering again with some of his men, and two guards came to restrain Ian and threw him out, just as I expected.

Adam looked unfazed when the Superior placed a hand on his shoulder in a way that made me jealous.

I glanced at Marcus’s grave, and my gaze wandered to the blood-red rose. It wasn’t blood-red, or beautiful anymore. Mud and murk had spoiled its fragile beauty and mutilated it into a miserable gray object, disfigured beyond recognition, tarnished, and misshapen, soon to be devoured by the murky ground that surrounded it.

It was no longer a symbol of hope and innocence. It was an omen; a harbringer of death and destruction. And I was truly terrified of it.