The Sand & the Eyhole

"Breathe out so I can breathe you in; hold you in." – Foo Fighters

Chapter 3:

The light from the keyhole illuminated a single eye. He knelt in the dark hallway as he stared intensely beyond the door. The light reflected dark green flecks in his iris. He cocked his head slightly to the side to get a better view of the boys in the bedroom. A broad and knowing smile spread across his thick, bearded face. He knew I could see him spying, and he liked it. His conspicuous lust was so intense that it infected me.

As I glared at him, I felt a warm, unnerving wave of intensity flush over my body. It felt like river water flowing over me from the top of my sandy hair to the soles of my feet on the cedar-wood floors. Perhaps it was from anger or lust or both. Or maybe a warm front was passing through. A calm humid burst often preceded a thunderstorm, and the cabin now felt sweltering after the sun dropped below the horizon. I could smell the musty thickness in the air of night-time forest and manly pheromones.

I wondered about the beautiful young men who were in the guest bedroom. Were they naked? Was Ian still in pain? Would they have sex in my guest bedroom? Was Kasey going to kill me and steal the little bit of furniture I had in the cabin? I wondered many things at that moment, but I was certain of one thing; Murad had never looked at me the way he looked at the young couple through that keyhole. I was felt sadness when I admitted to myself the obvious truth. Despite how much I wanted it, Murad would never look at me with those same lustful, ravenous eyes.

Murad had bandaged Ian's foot and given him some pill to help with the pain after the incident in the woods. I had little choice but to let them stay at my place given the circumstances. Ian was injured and nearly incoherent from the drug, and Kasey would never leave his lover's side. Still I was unnerved by the presence of the two strangers, who irradiated an unsettling mixture of danger and beauty.

Murad's eyes grew wide in response to movement in the bedroom. His pupil dilated, and I noticed movement underneath his tight Levi's. I had seen his dick many times even though he had never allowed me to touch it. That dick had caused more wasted energy than any other object I had ever encountered. I thought of his thick cock with fear, with disdain, with lust, and with disgust. Even after wasted nights imagining that dick deep inside my body, I still hadn't given up hope. One day, he would get drunk. He would be sad about something and be vulnerable. He'd be horny and have nowhere to go to release it. He'd fuck me, and I would feel his body. I'd get to feel him, and I'd imagine his love. Sometimes, I would allow myself the guilty pleasure of imagining that the stiff pounding of a man's cock was validation of my self-worth. Sometimes I even imagined I was loved while submitting my body to someone. I imagined I wasn't the only one to feel this way.

But nothing ever happened as planned. Everything had gone wrong today. I imagined the skewed triangle between the sweaty young men, Murad's kneeling body in the hallway, and me standing alone in the dark living room. The living room seemed wrong. A buck's head with 13-pointed antlers stared down at me judgingly above the unfinished mantle above the fireplace. The boys were wrong. They were too trashy for this expensive cabin in the woods. The tattoos on their bodies were wrong. Ian had a huge tattoo of a cross on his back, and Kasey, a tattoo of Swastika on his chest. A single sighting of that at a respectable job in the city and they would be out on the street. As I sat alone in my sadness, I wanted nothing more than to get them out of my cabin and hope they forgot my address. Given the circumstances, that wasn't possible.

The worst part of the situation was that Murad lusted after the college boys, without shame, in front of me. His cocky certitude of his own desires annoyed me. I had invited him to my cabin hoping to get him away from his constant string of men in the city. He might get bored and horny and eventually turn his lust towards me. But now his raw lust was directed towards these two pieces of trailer trash from the surrounding farms. I was the one who deserved his lust. I felt both alone, and strangely, drawn in to the filthy emotions permeating the cabin. Murad had a way of turning the tables to his advantage. But by the time the night was over, I would turn the tables on him, some way. I always got my way, eventually.

"What are they doing in there?" I asked with a hint of intended disdain and genuine curiosity. I often tried to assess what turned Murad on. If I knew what his deepest desires were, I could use it for my own gain someday. But again, my attempts were foiled. He just smiled and laughed like a child under his breath. "They aren't even naked," he spoke softly back. He smiled with his eyes still fixated. "Kasey just kissed Ian's broken foot." He turned his green eyes toward me, and I could see the distinct hourglass shape of the light from the keyhole on his thick bearded cheek. "I think it's helping with the pain. My mother always told me that kisses do that," he laughed.

Murad looked genuinely happy, with almost childlike flippancy. While I was hoping he would say something disgustingly sexual, it seemed as if he could feel the love between the two boys as if it was his own. I felt anger again that he wasn't the monster I wanted him to be at that moment. If he was a bad person, I could hate him, but he wasn't. He was a good person even though he had a sex drive that could put an adolescent rabbit to shame. He felt empathy for the young couple. He could feel their pain and their love and their fear and their passion. I could see it on Murad's clouded face. I just wanted them gone. I don't know why he bothered with those local boys. He could do so much better. He could find a hot, cultured man in the city, who would look good on his arm as he walked down State street.

"I gave Ian an Oxycontin and bandaged his foot up," Murad said. "It's all I can do if he doesn't want to see the doctor. Hopefully it's not broken." Murad smiled not with mouth but with his squinty green eyes. "Ian looks very happy for now --- they both do. Hard to know if it's the pill kicking in, or the fact that he has someone who loves him enough to rub his foot while he is in pain."

Hearing the word 'love' escape Murad's lips was a new experience for me. It seemed out of character but many things he did surprised me. He kept his feelings deep while he kept his lust open for all to see. Was to be in love more shameful than to watch two guys, ten years younger, fondling each other in the confines of my cabin? Murad always was incomprehensible to me, and it made me angry. I wasted so much time trying to figure out what made him tick, and still he would surprise me.

"Love is just opioids produced by our own body," Murad said, destroying the tiny hint of humanity that he had shown previously. "So maybe it doesn't matter which it is." I knew Murad was lying by pretending to be scientific about love. Murad needed love as much as anyone else, he just didn't want to admit it. Love meant giving up control. Love was for fools, like me or the couple in the bedroom, but not for him. He was too strong. I smiled as I realized that despite his attempts to be opaque, there were many things I knew about him. Some things I knew about him, he didn't even know about himself.

I peered out the window at the end of the hall beyond where Murad knelt. It looked on to the lush, mossy green of the Wisconsin woods. The forest was thicker and darker here than down the county highway at Mazo beach. Through the dense trees I could see a tiny sliver of the deep river valley beyond. It looked as if I too was looking through a keyhole. Beyond the river were the last orange rays of the sun beneath the horizon. The color reflected off imminent storm clouds approaching with the night. I wanted to see more of the horizon, but it was dark and the forest too thick. It seemed that everyone in the cabin was looking through some keyhole. We are all limited by whatever hole we choose to put in front of our eyes, I thought. It helps limit our awareness to only those truths we want to see. And looking without being seen, means we can pretend to feel without getting hurt.

Lightning struck in the far distance. The subsequent flashes turned Murad's body into a black silhouette for seconds at a time. The light was followed by the sudden downpour of the summer rain drumming loudly on the thin wood of the cabin roof. The rain was welcome as it quickly released the sticky, stagnant humidity that had been lingering in the cabin. The hallway was illuminated again with a closer lightning strike. I could tell from the silhouette that his dick was upright underneath his thrift-store pants.

Again, anger welled in my gut as I stewed in my own emotions. It almost overwhelmed me as I thought back to the beach and to the cop, who seemed too conveniently placed to be by random chance. My heartbeat was fast and my breath shallow. If I was stuck here having to deal with Murad and two boys who may kill me in my sleep and steal the electronics I had in the house, I may as well make the most of it.

"Murad," I said with a hint of shame at asking. "Do you think I could have one of those Oxycontin as well?" Despite my shame at asking, I felt entitled to a consolation prize after putting up with his callousness this weekend. "If I'm going to be stuck alone in the living room for hours during this storm while you lust after two young men, it might make the night go faster." Guilt was a powerful motivator when trying to convince a jury to do what I wanted.

"Sure," Murad said with a devious smile. It was as if it were his personal mission to corrupt me. I knew it, and I used it to my advantage. I swallowed the large white tablet he placed in my palm. The pill tasted like bitterness mixed with shame and victory. Someday I hoped to swallow his bitter cum with the same shame and victory, but in the meantime, a pill would have to suffice. It had been a long day, and I was ready to experience pleasure, even if it had to be chemically induced.

I threw some newly chopped cedar logs into the fire place and turned the key to the natural gas until I could feel the comforting sound of flame on wood. Murad had split the logs the previous day. Apparently he had learned how to be a lumberjack back in the day before he became a wealthy cosmopolitan. We all have skeletons in our closets and hope there are no open keyholes in that closet. I would find them out some day if I spied on him long enough. Although I had to admit, we often find what we want to see, if we look long enough and don't ask any follow-up questions.

The damp air in the living room illuminated with a lusty, orange glow, as the cedar caught fire and filled the dark cabin with its sweet, masculine smoke. I gave one last look down the hallways, and then laid down on the couch in front of the fire. The drug slowly took hold of my skin like I was buried in the warm sand of Mazo beach.

My mind was enveloped along with my body. Since we had arrived in the house, I obsessed over trying to understand why he wasted time with that trash when he could have so much better. I was better than those two. I was richer. I was loyal. I could give him a stable life. But he didn't care. The drug made these thoughts somehow all beside the point. I could see the situation as if I was no longer part of it, but just watching it like a curious dream. It was a dream that repulsed me, but dreams all had some truth to them. Sometimes our dreams fulfill wishes we didn't want to admit we had. I could feel the radiant heat of the fireplace engulf me with the dreamscape. I could hear the soothing white noise of the thunderstorm on the roof. I could smell the smoke and the fresh sweat from the unstoppable men in my cabin. My worries seemed to melt away as I had nowhere to go but here and now.

Trying to distract myself on the green leather couch, I picked up one of his books from the magazine rack. I could see the title of the book as I held it in front of me: I am a Strange Loop. I couldn't have chosen a more appropriate title for Murad. Its incomprehensible title seemed to perfectly sum up his personality. He seemed more than content to kneel there, beckoning me, corrupting me. He wanted me to be as shameless as himself and treat sex like it was something to be thrown around and devalued like a cheap paperback novel. And his machinations were working. I felt dirty. I felt like a whore in my own cabin. I felt like a sick, creepy, pathetic voyeur. The feeling was so strong I had no choice but to admit to myself that allowing myself to be degraded was not an entirely unpleasant sensation. Murad had his influence over me because I wanted him to corrupt me. With no power, there is no responsibility. And how I envied those who lived without responsibility. "Do you want to have a look?" Murad finally asked, pulling back my mind from another plane of bright colors and slow pleasure. My inhibitions were dulled as the Oxycontin could be felt flowing like tingling river waves through my bloodstream. My normal reaction would have been feigned indignation... but now, my mind said, yes. My body said, yes. The part of me that fought against the hedonist tide around me was put to sleep by the drug. I did want to look. I wanted to feel what Kasey and Ian felt. I wanted to feel both of their hot sweaty bodies. I wanted to feel their love for each other. I wanted to be anywhere but an afterthought in the living room of my own usurped domain. I tried to answer him, but the words were stuck in my throat from the heat of the fire and the coolness of the drug.

He giggled and answered for me. "It's not like any of us are leaving this cabin until morning," he said. "You might as well let yourself feel happiness for one fucking moment of your life instead of laying there judging us all." He was right, and I hated it when he was right. The cabin's driveway was still unpaved and was now probably a mess of tractionless mud. His tiny Geo Tracker would not have the weight to make it over the rough quarter mile of driveway, and I wasn't going to risk getting my Tesla Roadster stuck in the ditch. Murad was playing a game with me, but the drug seemed to counter my attempts to resist. I placated myself by convincing myself that I was only playing along. I was only pretending to submit. Eventually I would find a way to get back at him and his constant teasing.

I walked, slightly off-kilter, toward the keyhole. He motioned toward the hole. "No that's creepy," I pretended to protest.

Through the white noise of the rain I could hear Kasey's deep voice from the guest bedroom. "We don't mind," he shouted through the closed door. "We like to show off. It gets us off." I felt a tinge of embarrassment, not knowing they could hear our words so clearly in the hallway through the door and the sound of rain. It was no secret that we were attracted to them. Who wouldn't be? But I wanted to treat them respectfully, I told myself. But I knew honestly, I was scared. I was scared of them and their unapologetic middle finger toward my urban values. I didn't want to be like Murad, shamelessly getting off on watching the young rednecks naked in my home. Yet I complied. It made me happy to comply.

Murad stood up with a smile and looked deeply in my eyes for a fleeting moment. What was he trying to say to me? He looked at me like I was such a prude, a conservative stick-in-the-mud, who wasn't as 'enlightened' with his free-love bullshit. He seemed to be saying something along the lines of, "Lighten up." He put his large, muscular hand on my shoulder. His fingers were short and thick, like the rest of his body. He smiled with only his deep green eyes. "Just let yourself feel pleasure for once. Pleasure never killed anyone. Just... relax." And just like that, I felt pleasure tingle across the entire surface of my skin. He had a sway over me I couldn't shake.

Murad knocked twice on the door like a good doctor. He walked into the bedroom where the two lay next to each other on the mattress. He shut the door behind him with a smile. I was left alone in the hallway, emotionally and physically drained. My inhibitions were just a distant memory, erased by the painkiller and the futility of stopping anything that was about to happen. Defeated, I succumbed to the erect devil on my shoulder.

I wanted to see the love shared between the boys. Mostly, I wanted to see Murad getting off. I wanted to see his stiff dick, even if it wasn't stiff for me. I wanted to see his eyes rolled back as he unloaded his thick load of cum inside of someone. I wanted to see him using them as his personal playthings. I carefully knelt down in the same place he had been moments before. I looked through the iron keyhole covered with black corrosion. It smelled like the old metal from a junk yard. As I accepted the depravity that Murad had dragged me into, my mind quieted as it entered another world of drugs and unashamed power.

The boys were just wearing ragged t-shirts and boxer briefs. Ian's dark green shirt had a wrestling logo while Kasey had a black shirt with the sleeves ripped off. On its front was a Metallica logo that had faded to grey with sunshine and bleach. Murad pulled the wooden folding chair from the side of the room to the side of the bed acting like a doctor's office with a tinge of humorous irony. "I'm not going to be able to examine you with shirts on," he said with a mostly straight face. The right corner of his mouth subtly turned upward revealing his facetiousness. The two smiled to themselves as they disrobed down to their underwear.

I again saw the black tattoo of the swastika on Kasey's chest. I was revolted that I had inadvertently allowed that symbol into my cabin. In what world did these boys live? He wore that symbol as a badge of pride permanently embossed on his skin. I felt paralyzed by my disgust and my attraction. The contradiction of the two amplified each other until I could do nothing but stare. Kasey was the embodiment of American beauty. His ginger head was shaved to the scalp. His body was chiseled like a classical statue. His short red beard was hastily clipped with a trimmer, revealing a devil-may-care smile. He was white trash, showing his disdain for polite society by plastering a symbol of hate on his body. I wanted to kick him out of my cabin into the storm outside to show my utter contempt for his callousness. But I didn't. Disgusted at myself, I continued to watch. His trashy body was utterly beautiful despite, or because of, its disregard for the things I held sacred. I looked beyond the pitch black of Kaey's tattoo to the irradiant, pale skin of his cheeks. His skin had a shade of coolness as it seemed to reflect the dusty blue of the bedroom walls. His eyes reminded me of the color of the sky reflecting off the Wisconsin river, by the beach where I first saw him. His gaze was full of primal energy. Within us, we have the desire to attack and run and fuck and hold. We evolved to be animals who could survive and sometimes have moments of passion and love. He embodied centuries of primate evolution to be a perfect specimen of man. His biceps and chest constricted like he was ready to attack and ravage the infirm boy beside him.

"Flip over on your back," Murad said to Ian as he joined the couple on the bed.

"Yes..." I mouthed silently, almost adding a Sir, at the end of the sentence. I was so preoccupied with the couple in the bedroom that I had left my own body. I pressed my eye flush to the cool metal keyhole, entranced by the beauty in front of me.

Murad felt beneath the bandages of Ian's foot. "How is the pain?" he asked as he seemed to spend too much time fondling the young man's muscular ankle and calf.