DARK
PEARLS
Epilogue
6
months later
Keone
was impatient today. There’d been
some trouble collecting his money; in fact, there seemed to be nothing but
trouble nowadays. He had yet
another meeting with some group or other, and the negotiations were proving very
unsatisfactory for him. Fucking
city did him no favours at all!
“Take
me into the city,” said Reven. He sat curled up in an old armchair, in
Keone’s sparse little apartment. “Take me with
you.”
“Fuck
off!” Keone laughed at him, and reached for his coat. “You think I don’t know what you’re
after?”
“Nothing,”
said Reven, softly. His voice was slower now – his face
smooth with the absence of a child’s emotions and hopes. His eyes showed an age that was
strangely at odds with his young body.
“After all, that’s what you tell me I should expect, isn’t
it?”
Keone
shook his head, irritated. “Don’t
get ideas, sweet ass. You can’t see
‘em. You
can’t go there any more. Not to
that school, not to that park, not to anywhere the family is! Remember? You were the kid who confessed to the
local thefts – you were the kid who said you’d befriended those sweet, innocent
children, just to get close to their family and to rob them. You were the kid who brought in the gold
tie clip, proof of the things you’d taken from them…”
“Fucker!”
snapped Reven, but his protest was listless. It wasn’t as if Keone hadn’t tormented him about it before. Many
times.
“Sure,”
sighed Keone.
For once, he didn’t seem to gloat as much as usual. He was as listless as Reven himself about it. “And this fucker was the guy who got you out
on bail on the pretext of being some long-lost relative, and then helped you
skip the city, most conveniently.
But you show your sweet ass back there and someone will slam you back in jail as
fast as I can roll a joint.”
“I
just wanted to see they’re OK…” Reven didn’t think
he’d spoken aloud. He thought he’d
trained himself out of that nowadays.
Not many people were bothered to listen to him, at the best of
times.
Keone
shrugged. Fucked if he was bothered
what the kid did. Except that he’d been a good little
earner for him over the last few months.
He had a look about him that excited the punters – a thin, fragile
beauty, yet still a boy’s beauty.
Slim, yet muscled; very graceful in his movements. And that hair, so black and long and
soft – that was a real find! They liked to touch him – to cut
him. To watch him
sigh and sob. To have him touch them. Keone had
hopes that he’d get the boy to bend over a little more readily in the future;
there was a hell of a lot more money to be earned from that.
But
for now, of course, he was a valuable part of the current
deal.
“I’m
going away,” he said, abruptly.
Reven didn’t turn his head, but he did seem to
listen more closely. “This patch is
turning bad for me now – I can’t make it work for me. I’ve got contacts upstate, and I’m going
there.” He coughed. “Like, I don’t bother telling the other
kids, they can fend for themselves.
They’ll soon fix up with others.
But you, sweet ass…”
He
took hold of the boy’s chin and tilted it up to look into his eyes. So wide; so dark, like
swimming in chocolate. “The
new guy wants you, boy. Reven. I’ve told him so much about you that he
wants to take you in – to give you a job with their organisation. You’ll do OK if you do what you’re
told.”
“Like
I always do…” murmured Reven.
“Like
fuck you do.” Keone sighed again.
He dropped his hold on Reven’s face; turned
away. “The guy’s name is
“He
slap you
around?” asked Reven, curiously.
Keone
flushed, angrily. “None of your fucking business! You’re a whore, sweet ass, and nothing
more! That’s all you’re worth, and
you better remember it! Just a card in the deck when I sell up here. No more mixing with these cute kids –
with these rich families. No more
simpering little girlfriend – no jock groping you in the hallways. You think I don’t know what you got up
to with them?”
Reven
stared back at him, in challenge.
“I fucking know you don’t!” he
hissed back. “You don’t know anything about them – or me! So back off! We made a deal – you left ‘em alone, and you got me! You fuck that up and
–“
“OK,
OK,” growled Keone. “Fucking drama
queen. I knew there was a
damned good reason I was leaving.
Get away from all the shit you give me.” He threw a sideways glance at Reven. “They’re
OK,” he said, shortly. Fucking stupid thing, thinking he owed this
piece of ass anything at all! “Right? I saw ‘em a
while back. Both
at that plush school – both walking home together, laughing.”
Reven
laughed, then. It was a contrast to
his usual ugly, harsh sound. More
like his laugh as a child – his very musical, happy laugh.
“It’s
good you’re going, Keone. Time for us all to
move on, right?”
Keone
looked at him, warily. Boy never
did drugs – else he’d think he was high on something. “You sickening for
something, sweet ass? I
can’t have you off work now, not at the moment –“
“No,”
said Reven. “I’m not sickening for anything. Just happy,
right? Happy there are other
people not stuck in this shit hole like me. Happy there are other people who don’t
have to put up with my life.”
He
heard Keone slamming the door behind him, in a fit of
bad temper.
Happy
I got to look after them, after all,
he thought. One way or
another.
End