Shadowlands, p.1
Shadowlands, page 1
Table of Contents
Blurb
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Pygmalion Revisited
October 13th
The Twisted Glory of Ganymede
GRINDR
Witch’s Brew
Lucretia Undone
Mating Season
The Transmitter
Harvest
1 1 2 358 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 17711 28657 46368 75025 121393 196418 317811…
Xander & Hephaestion
Narcissus
Puer Aeternus
Praise for Shadowlands
About the Author
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright
Shadowlands
By Charlie David
Shadowlands is a collection of heartfelt and sometimes heartbreaking short stories from TV and film producer Charlie David that explore the passion and pain of gay sexuality. Ancient myths are reimagined with an exciting queer twist, masterfully depicting the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
Story genres in this collection include romance, science fiction, fantasy/paranormal, horror, and poetry. Shadowlands was developed into a television miniseries showcasing three stories inspired from this collection—"Pygmalion Revisited,” “Mating Season,” and “Narcissus.” The miniseries is available on Amazon, Vimeo, and on the storefront at Border2Border.ca.
A love of storytelling led Charlie to start Border2Border Entertainment, a production company whose film and television credits include Shadowlands, Drag Heals, Mulligans, Judas Kiss, I’m a Stripper, Studlebrity, Balls, I’m a Porn Star, I’m a Porn Star: Gay4Pay, and Positive Youth.
Border2Border Entertainment’s shows have been licensed to Showtime, Super Channel, HBO Canada, MTV/LOGO, Sundance Channel, Discovery Networks, The Movie Network, Movie Central, Hollywood Suite, hereTV, Encore Avenue, and OutTV in North America as well as finding a worldwide audience through international distribution partners.
Acknowledgments
THOUGH SHADOWLANDS is just a dark little book, it took several bright and shiny people to ensure its completion and success. A sincere thank you to Dreamspinner Press for welcoming me to their team of writers. I’m proud to be flying the Dreamspinner colors as their creative support and enthusiasm for this book have been outstanding.
I’d like to thank my manager Linda Carter for once again reading, editing, and providing tireless encouragement in my career, even when we’d both rather take a nap. Photographer Tyler Dillman designed the beautifully dark cover artwork which features actor Sean C. Dwyer from the “Narcissus” episode of the Shadowlands TV miniseries.
And most sincerely, thank you for selecting this book and supporting my dream. Without you, dear reader, there would be no point.
“Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
—Rumi
Pygmalion Revisited
Commission
SIA CON me, Signore, quando sono nella difficoltà, è con me Signore, io pregano.
Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble. Be with me Lord, I pray.
The sculptor crossed himself and stood. Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo. Amen. (In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.) As he genuflected, he looked up into the downcast eyes of the suffering Lord. La Passione. $30,000. That’s what the monastery paid him to create the monstrosity they kneel before every sunrise and sunset. The crucifix. A man/god nailed brutally to a tree. Strung up and left to die. Baking in the sun as his lungs collapse from the inertia and he chokes on his own blood.
Perdoni loro il padre, conoscono non che cosa.
Forgive them Father; they know not what they do.
Startlingly realistic. Frightening. Motionless anguish and suffering, continuing without relief into eternity. You did this. You cast him to suffer without end. Why was it that the crucifix was at the head of every Catholic church? Why not have renderings of the Sacred Heart in its place? Money talks, that was why. Who are you to suggest to the Vatican that marble arms outstretched in a welcoming embrace would feel any warmer than marble arms stretched and nailed in place? Marble is cold in any manifestation.
The sculptor turned and walked to the back of the chapel, hearing the echo of his heel on the cobblestone floor even above the rhythmic chant of the monks. Dipping his hand into the holy water, he felt a gentle hand on his elbow.
“Signore Benetti, we’re so pleased to have you join us this morning. I realize you must have risen quite early to make the drive in time for our sunrise service. Will you join me in the courtyard?” Signore Fabrisio, the head monk asked, sotto voce.
“Happy to, Signore,” the sculptor answered, and followed. The monastery was founded in 1925 by the Passionists in Jamaica, New York and boasted a sprawling menagerie of brick buildings nestled in the manicured gardens of the estate. There was a sense of tranquility there that the sculptor usually found only in his workshop. A reflective quiet held the monastery in its embrace, protecting it from time, from interruption, and from secular concern. It was a stark contrast from his loft in the meatpacking district of New York City. He always found it funny to say he was going to Jamaica and then get on the Queensboro Bridge and head into Queens County.
“We’d like to commission you for another piece, Marcus,” Signore Fabrisio said, looking intently at Signore Benetti. “The brothers use this courtyard as a place of meditation and prayer. We have elected a statue of Saint Pelagius. Are you familiar with Pelagius?”
“Just bits from Catechism, I’ll have to research. Do you have any renderings or sketches for me to consider?”
“No renderings. Our concept was to bring forth something from the Hellenistic period—of course, keeping within the parameters of his vision.”
“If you have any literature on Saint Pelagius, I’d definitely welcome it in addition to my own research.”
“I’ll have our librarians pull some materials and courier them to your studio this afternoon.”
“Perfect. As always, a pleasure, Signore.”
“Won’t you stay for a meal?” the monk asked.
“I really should get back to the city. I have a piece due to be fired today.”
“You’re always working. How are you, Marcus?”
“I’m fine, it’s been such a busy year. Just can’t seem to catch up without.…”
“Nic,” Signore Fabrisio answered.
“Yeah, without Nic. I can’t believe it’s been a year.”
“You were so strong through his illness.”
“I didn’t have a choice. The meds were expensive. I needed to work.”
“Life is riddled with choices. You chose to stay at your partner’s side when many would have left.”
“I couldn’t have left. I loved him. I still love him,” Marcus said, looking up for a reaction from the monk.
“I know. Don’t lose faith. His ways are mysterious,” Signore Fabrisio said, placing a hand on Marcus’s shoulder.
“I’m afraid I have. I’m left with nothing but clay and marble to comfort me.”
“Sometimes work is exactly where we can find the greatest comfort after tragedy.”
Genesis
THE SCULPTOR took a sip of his tea and let the soaring voice of Josh Groban singing “Canto Alla Vita” cradle him. What ecstasy, to be so young: full of talent and promise.
“Nic, come sit, I want to show you my ideas for the relief.” He spoke to the empty room, as he often did, always hopeful that one day by some black magic there’d be an answer.
The sculptor’s mind drifted back to Nic. Six years ago and their first piede ha terra. Just out of art school, brimming with youthful optimism and exuberance. Beautiful. So exquisitely perfect. Michelangelo was shortchanged in having David model. Nic was beyond words. And the sculptor felt… blessed to be here, with him.
Gone, he thought to himself. A sacrifice offered to a marble god. A god who doesn’t answer prayers. A god who let him die. Alone. Making things of earth and stone. Cold and motionless. Frozen in time.
“You’ll love again,” they say. Fuck you. You never knew Nic. You never knew us. I’m wandering alone, pointless. Frozen myself. Can’t feel anymore.
Now. Make a statue of another saint. Manifest another tragic life; place it on a pedestal as a reminder of how shitty life can be. What happened to you, Saint Pelagius? Were you fed to lions? Pierced with arrows? Persecuted because of your sex? Beliefs? Were you beheaded? Did you chastise yourself from society, from love? Should I immortalize you carrying a skull to remind us of our fleeting mortality? With a sword through your heart as a well-meaning observance proclaiming love as a tortured being, often believed to be extinct?
Hellenistic. What happened to the concept of holding art as a testament to human achievement and transcendence? Eros and Psyche intertwined under an olive tree, blissfully unaware of the passage of centuries, or Hercules himself, a testament to courage and brute force, cloaked in lion’s head and club. Or Pallas Athena, ever contemplative, staring out in wisdom, having just sprung from the forehead of Zeus.
Hellenistic. Beauty. Grace. Strength. Love. Wisdom. Extinct.
The sculptor picked up his tools and some clay. Genesis.
Birth
THE SCULPTOR felt at once empty and immeasurably full inside. From the Earth he had created impossibility. Before him stood a rendering so immaculate, so exquisite in detail that it brought pain to his senses. Only from a p
A war raged inside the sculptor. The combatant armed to fiercely destroy the creation and conversely lay down his life to protect it. Having poured all his being into the conception of the statue, he lay at its naked feet and cried himself softly to a dreamless sleep.
Discovery
THE SCULPTOR awoke with an ache on the left side of his face, cold and hard. Opening his eyes, he recognized a set of toes. Toenails. A broad foot with tendons, each just a barely visible ripple under the skin. Meticulously carved calves inviting a deranged hunger to bite into them. Powerful thighs. He grabbed hold and lifted his face past sleek abdomen, chest, and into the eyes of Nic. Lifting his hand, he gently laid two fingers on the slightly parted lips. “Not real.”
What have you done? Commissioned to birth a saint from stone and you raise your boyfriend from the dead.
“Why’d you have to die?” the sculptor asked, looking up into the cold eyes of the statue. Curling his fingers around the relaxed hand resting at the statue’s side, he raised the other to seek the spot that would make his lover purr: the baby-soft hair in the nape of his neck. The spot that made Nic close his eyes and drop his forehead to meet Marcus’s when touched. But the statue held its position, strong and cold. The soft hair could not be replicated, no matter how skilled the craftsmanship.
“Ridiculous,” Marcus whispered and backed away from the statue, which only stared back at a place just over his left shoulder. Why had he created such a thing? It was not his intent when he had begun. Was he subconsciously really that lonely? Did normal people do this? Maybe his eyes were just playing tricks on him. When he looked back, what he saw was infallible. There was no argument as to who was standing frozen in his loft.
If there were a time to destroy, it would be now. Before a mold was constructed, before the wax took its shape, before any bronze was heated. Before there was an opportunity to immortalize him. “Not him. It,” the sculptor reminded himself and left his studio, turning off the light.
To Sleep Perchance…
THE SCULPTOR pulled back the sheets and climbed into his bed, habitually grabbing the extra pillow and pulling it into his embrace. It smelled of sickness but also, in just the right places, of Nic. He couldn’t bring himself to wash it. Not yet, it was still too soon. If he washed it, he feared he’d lose forever the visions that flooded his mind when he pulled it close like this. Breathe deeply of him but not too much. Save some for tomorrow. Every day the scent grew a little fainter, a little farther away.
At least the nightmares had subsided. For the first six months, the sculptor dreamed almost nightly that it was all a mistake, Nic was still here and they had buried him alive. He’d hear nails scratching on the coffin and feel the pressure of dirt on his chest. In an instant he was being buried with Nic, the musty smell of dirt filling his lungs and grains of mud scratching his eyeballs. Not now, it’s not time. He’d wake up with bunches of bedsheets balled in his fists and with cramps in his legs, straining to free himself and his lover from the phantom coffin.
But he hadn’t had one of those nightmares in months. His sleep had become a black void: dreamless and restless, providing no escape from the monotony of his days, just a momentary blackness. It had become an eclipse, providing short-term respite. What the sculptor yearned for now, more than anything, was to stretch that eclipse into an eternity. To jump into the River of Time and be washed away before anyone had the opportunity to notice. He didn’t want to hurt anyone; he wanted no one to mourn. He wanted his death to happen in a blink. By the time the world had shut and opened its eyes he would be gone forever, never to be remembered. No memorial service for him. That was the problem with Nic’s passing; everyone knew he was sick and so he spent his last year as a spectator at his own funeral procession. Day after day, flowers, condolences, and a whispered play-by-play of his physical demise.
The sculptor closed his eyes and tried to push images of the end times out of his head. He pictured himself and Nic together, three years ago, in Paris, on the veranda of their hotel with a bottle of merlot breathing on the table between them.
“I think we should go to America,” Nic stated as he gazed out over the city. “There’s a new market there for us, and if we want to move beyond fashioning saints and the Madonna for members of the clergy, we need to make a name in America.”
“Leave Italy?” the sculptor asked.
“Not forever, but for a while, yes. Marcus, let’s explore, let’s try living in a world we don’t know intimately.”
“But this is our home. What does America have? Steel and glass ready to be bulldozed fifty years after it’s been erected to make room for something new. A society of waste. Americans place no value on history, we’d starve there.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Nic laughed, “Suonate come il mio nonno.” (“You sound like my grandfather.”)
“Well, maybe he’s right.”
“Maybe you’re afraid of change. I like the Americans’ thinking. New and fresh. It’s stagnant here. Nothing lasts forever, Marcus. It’s getting cold out here, will you bring me my.…”
“I HAVE your coat right here, thought you might be cold,” the sculptor said, making his way through the workshop as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. His words echoed strangely in the space accustomed to being filled with music as he worked during the day. “Actually, I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d come and talk. If you want your coat, it’s here, I’ll just leave it on the chair.”
“Thank God I live alone, huh Nic? I bet you’re having a good laugh at me right now.” The sculptor crossed behind the statue and pulled open the canvas drapes, inviting in the twinkling lights of Manhattan. His profile cut a sharp silhouette over the cityscape as he spoke softly to Nic. “I suppose I better get that coat for you or it will be forever before you reach for it.”
The sculptor picked up the coat and draped it around the statue’s shoulders. His mind drifted back to happier times when they were still in Italy. There was some small comfort afforded him in simply mining his memories and reliving them. “You always liked to be pampered, my little prince. I’ve been thinking more about what you said, about moving to America. I think we should do it. We can rent out our place here, some art students from the university will surely take it, and we’ll go. I think we should go for a year, see how we like it and go from there. I can’t imagine your mother could handle any longer without following us. She’d go crazy. Have you thought which city to go to? My cousin Leo went to New York, seems everyone goes to New York, but then maybe it wouldn’t be much different, no? Doesn’t matter, the point is we’re going, Nic. We can leave tomorrow if you want. I just need to finish this new statue for the monastery and we can go.…”
Not real. This isn’t real. The eyes of the statue looked down at the sculptor, to that place just over his left shoulder. Lips slightly parted as if he might just speak. Maybe form one word. Just to hear I love you from him one last time. The sculptor stepped up on the pedestal and laid his head on its chest.
Dust to Dust
THE SMELL sickened Marcus, but he wouldn’t leave. His hair was matted against his forehead with sweat from Nic’s chest. Nic’s breathing had become irregular and labored. It sounded like his lungs were filled with swamp water. The sheets were soaked through and his nightshirt was wet and stained from where he had thrown up. The windows had been thrown open on Nic’s request, that he was suffocating and needed air. Marcus added another quilt to the bed to disperse his lover’s chill despite the fact that he was burning up with fever.
“It’s time, Marcus,” Nic choked out the words as he brushed the matted hair away from Marcus’s face with a near-lifeless hand.
“No, not yet. Tomorrow may be better.”
“Marcus, it’s time. Dust to dust.” He tried a laugh but it came out hoarse and dry.
