The Bijoux

They found him just conscious enough to give one word answers to those rat-a-tat questions, sketching a timeline of these injuries and his personal info.To his advantage an ambulance aide recognized him from those Summer introductory classes at Corpus Christi and they quickly began a full medical assessment. At that point it all started again, the pain shooting from the follicles on his head to the tips of each of his toes. The gentle nuzzling of that dog’s curiosity was nothing compared to these probing hands running along his limbs and torso.It was only then Jack realized his pants were back up on his waist, being spared any embarrassing questions of that sexual attack. He would know the connection, but he had no interest here and now to go into details of this mugging, certainly not with this all-volunteer ambulance medical staff.When they went to move his arm he passed out again.

The blare of that guitar wail was the only announcement for the show, the crowd surging toward the stage as he was carried along, twisting to see Mick Jagger strut onto stage, prancing with a red scarf flowing over his shoulder, fluttering in that spotlight as if blood gushing from his open jugular, spotlights leaving a splatter staining the back wall, Jagger's expression lingering between a sneer and a knowing smirk as that pinspot followed him across the stage, shaking his head at each performer in the trance of some voodoo ritual, clapping and preening to that beat, suddenly grabbing a microphone and snarling “…it’s a gasssss”

He awoke suddenly with that feeling of being on a roller coaster, a child helpless to the ricochet of that first quick curve and the sudden drops that gave a long-lost sensation of airtime, floating free over the seat, held into the car by just that bar across his hips, wide-eyed and mouth agape in a silent scream. 

The ambulance was traveling at such a great speed he was being lifted and jostled, the throbbing pain concentrated under the restraints. His shoulder and upper arm had been secured to his chest to avoid any movement and he felt rather like a Christmas gift, wrapped solely in ribbon and tied off quickly with a flourish.

It was the hiss of oxygen filling the mask he had mistook for that turn of lyric, the wail of guitars clearly that ambulance siren and he wasn’t sitting but was strapped onto a gurney, the young medical technician using a flashlight directly into his eyes creating that light show, now awake and only too aware of the dull ache throughout his body, of a reality that had taken this last strange turnabout.

"You’ll be fine once the morphine kicks in" he heard that man say, but Jack just continued to stare up at him, or rather at those lips which seemed so perfectly drawn. This face could be on a statue in a villa in Rome Jack mused as he took in his features, from the straight line of his nose that began at a hairline of jet black curls, framing those small ears that reminded him of a seashell he had once treasured, that cleft in his chin making a mockery of all those other chins in all the world.

"Can you see my fingers" he seemed to whisper and Jack nodded, thrilled to be joining in this child’s game. 

He was being seduced, about to be hypnotized by this stranger who now bent closer, gently removing the mask that continued hissing at him, telling him he was so wrong to even think that this beautiful man was looking at him with the same longing, that same need for the comfort of his touch.

"How may do you see" he said leaning closer, turning that perfectly formed seashell to Jack's lips. He could not have seen the quick flick of his tongue as Jack tried to mouth the word for three, his questing tongue wanting to swab the ivory expanse of neck just below that conch shell, but surely he must have understood as he turned back, smiling but now so close he was swimming in his entire field of vision and Jack could only smile back even as tears formed in his eyes making him blink, making him think of all those silent film heroines batting their heavily made-up eyes into a camera’s unflinching gaze.

"The morphine will be kicking in shortly, so hang in there" the medic assured him as he dabbed the side of his face, drawing that swab so gently that Jack finally closed his eyes and softly moaned, not wanting this moment to end in the oblivion of a quick cutaway but in a slow, soft-focus dissolve.

To Be Continued..